A financial firm that lost more than 650 employees in the Sept. 11 terror attacks must reduce its demands that an airline pay it nearly $1 billion, a judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein made the ruling regarding Cantor Fitzgerald after the company estimated it suffered $1 billion in lost profits because of the deaths of two-thirds of its work force at the World Trade Center.

The judge said Cantor Fitzgerald cannot base its estimate for damages on lost profits resulting from employees who died. He noted that the company had originally put losses at $102 million but raised them in 2009 to $1 billion before reducing them last year to $963 million.