The High Court has ordered three individuals to pay the Financial Services Authority (FSA) approximately £115m of consumer deposits held unlawfully.

The payment relates to activities in unlawfully accepting deposits without authorisation from the regulator.

John Anderson, Kenneth Peacock and Kautilya Nandan Pruthi  were ordered to pay the amount back to the FSA, for it to return to investors.

The move follows a High Court judgment in March which ruled that Pruthi, Anderson and Peacock, under the trading styles of Business Consulting International, John Anderson Consulting and Kenneth Peacock Consulting, unlawfully accepted deposits from UK consumers.

Margaret Cole, director of enforcement and financial crime at the FSA, said it had acted to prevent any further consumers from being cheated.

She said: "This case again emphasises the importance of taking care to ensure that any firm or individual consumers deal with are authorised or approved by the FSA. 

“Authorisation offers consumers valuable protection and access to complaints and compensation arrangements should anything go wrong."

The regulator said in its previous experience investors in similar schemes had been unlikely to repaid in part or at all. 

The FSA had first applied to the High Court in November 2008 for a freezing and restraining injunction preventing the defendants from continuing activites. It was followed in May 2009 by the arrest of three people by the City of London police on suspicion to defraud, money laundering and fraud by misrepresentation.