
They produced a glossy brochure, encouraged the belief that investors would reap huge rewards when the land received planning permission and claimed they had developers waiting to build houses on, what they called, Moreton Park.
On 11th February, the Financial Services Authority won a key victory in the battle against this unauthorised business after the High Court declared that David Banner-Eve, Stuart Cohen, Asset Land Investments Plc and Asset L.I. Inc. ran an illegal land bank by operating a collective investment scheme without FSA authorisation.
The FSA is aware of about 1,200 investors, some paying between £5,000 and £25,000 for each individual plot of land. To date, no planning permission has been obtained for any of the sites marketed by Asset Land.
Following the judgment, the FSA are seeking lifetime bans from the High Court for Banner-Eve and Cohen, preventing them from ever selling interests in land banking schemes for business purposes in the UK.
In addition, Trading Standards is currently conducting a criminal investigation into Asset Land, Cohen and Banner-Eve.
You can read the full FSA report here.