WASHINGTON (Dow Jones/AP) ? More than 50 customers of Refco Inc.?s unregulated Bermuda unit struck a deal that would allow them to retrieve $2.3 billion from the unit, although a single holdout customer retains the power to scuttle the pact.

If that customer, the legendary commodities trader Jim Rogers, doesn?t agree to join the pact within two weeks, court proceedings would begin to liquidate the Refco Capital Markets unit.

If Rogers and RCM remain at odds past mid-October, the entire settlement would unravel, the court-appointed trustee for RCM said Friday.

The trustee, Marc Kirschner, asked a judge in Manhattan to approve the deal nevertheless, saying it would set the stage for ?a potential global resolution of the Refco cases.?

Moreover, he said, the agreement at least offers an opportunity to avoid a ?freefall? liquidation of RCM.

Refco, once one of the country?s biggest commodity brokerages, is winding down its operations.

The company and nearly two dozen of its subsidiaries collapsed into bankruptcy amid an accounting scandal last year.

The resolution of those cases has been complicated by dozens of lawsuits filed by RCM customers and creditors.

In court papers, Kirschner said RCM is ?by far? Refco?s largest repository of cash, securities and other assets ? $2.3 billion in all.

Still, the unit?s liabilities are $3.7 billion, meaning not all of the unit?s customers and creditors can expect to be repaid in full.

Under the settlement, Kirschner said RCM customers who held securities accounts would recover more than 70 percent of the value of their claims. Customers who hold foreign-exchange accounts would get more than 26 percent of the value of their claims.

The forex customers, moreover, would get an advance payment of $221 million once the deal takes effect.

A third class of customers, consisting mainly of Leuthold Funds Inc., would get back the precious metals they deposited with RCM, or the proceeds from the sale of those metals.

Those funds have sued RCM to recover about $110 million in cash, silver and paladium.

Kirschner said nearly two dozen customers ? including the Moscow-based hedge fund VR Global Partners and the giant US food company Cargill Inc. ? have signed the settlement.

He said lawyers for more than two dozen other customers have told him they will recommend acceptance of the settlement.

But the customer with the single biggest claim against RCM hasn?t agreed to the deal.

The funds launched by Rogers, the best-selling author of such books as ?Investment Biker,? contend that RCM owes them $362 million.

The funds? lawyers have said they intend to spend the next two weeks negotiating a settlement.

Kirschner said in court papers that he offered them the option of having their claims treated as securities-customer claims or unsecured claims.

If an agreement can?t be reached within two weeks, Kirschner said he will seek to convert RCM?s bankruptcy case from a Chapter 11 reorganisation to a Chapter 7 liquidation.