FOUR business directors who made almost £2.5 million selling unprofitable investments have been banned.

Company director of World Future Ltd Edward George Lee, of Woodford Green, was disqualified from owning or managing a business for four and a half years on February 6.

The 71-year-old joins his fellow directors James Ward, 31, of South Woodford, Emily Chapman, 31, of Loughton, and Julie Sellers, 55, of Croydon, who were all disqualified after being exposed by the Insolvency Service in 2015 and 2016.

World Future sold voluntary emission reduction carbon credits (VERs) to members of the public at “highly inflated prices”, claiming the investment would make them big money later on.

But while they made £2,484,500, in reality the VERs were impossible to make a profit on, leaving customers with nothing.

Sold to people or businesses to offset their carbon footprints, VERs cannot be traded on any market, unlike Carbon Emission Reduction (CERs or carbon credits), which permit people to emit greenhouse gases and can be sold on.

Anthony Hannon of the Public Interest Unit said: “This company held itself out as having extensive expertise in the carbon credit market and made bold claims about the potential returns available when investing in carbon credits.

“The directors and salespeople had no such trading experience and were only able to make sales on the basis of systematic misrepresentations about the VERs they sold.

“The truth is that the VERs were impossible to resell, making them worthless as investments. The company was run entirely for the benefit of those running it, at substantial cost to the investors who had been misled.

“The lengthy periods of disqualification in this case show that this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated by the Insolvency Service.”