The trustee for the liquidation of MF Global yesterday filed a motion in a US Bankruptcy Court seeking authority to distribute additional funds to MF Global commodities futures customers who traded on US exchanges, as well as initial distribution to customers who traded on foreign exchanges.

Trustee James Giddens is seeking authority to make distributions amounting to $600 million of customer property held in segregated accounts for commodities futures customers trading in the US; around $50 million of customer property associated with commodity transactions in foreign markets; and up to $35 million in customer property to a domestic delivery class.

To date, customers in 4d funds (those traded in the US) have received around 72 per cent of their funds, while the trustee has only recovered a small proportion of assets in foreign-traded funds (called 30.7 funds), so these customers have yet to receive any distributions.

As yet, no court approval has been granted and the timing of any potential distributions is unknown, the trustee said. They would not be in bulk, but occur on a rolling basis to individual commodities customers who filed claims by the 31 January 2012 deadline and have received and agreed the trustee’s determination of their claim.

Furthermore, the trustee said in a statement that he anticipates he will likely have disputes with MF Global UK and other affiliated MF Global companies that have filed claims against the MF Global estate.

The three bulk transfers to date plus the requested distributions should lead to customers receiving: over 80 per cent of each finalized claims for US commodities customers who traded on US exchanges; over 80 per cent of each finalized claim for delivery funds; less than 10 per cent of each finalized claim for US commodities customer trading abroad.

The requested distribution would leave a reserve of funds, including $700 million for 4d funds, approximately $40 million for 30.7 funds, and approximately $10 million for delivery funds.