U.S. District Judge James Zagel ruled that INTL FCStone must return $15.6 million to the trustee overseeing the bankruptcy of Sentinel Management Group because other former clients were not equitably repaid money they had invested in the failed futures brokerage, Reuters reported yesterday. FCStone, a New York-based commodities brokerage with many farmers as clients, has received about 70 percent of the money it had invested with Sentinel, while other former customers have received back roughly 35 percent, said trustee Frederick Grede. Grede had asked Judge Zagel to allow creditors to receive more balanced payouts. Sentinel collapsed in 2007 after it allegedly moved customer funds from protected accounts to other accounts so they could be used as collateral for loans to Sentinel's own trading operations.
