Two companies that sold dubious oil investments to the UK public have been wound-up in the High Court, forcing them into liquidation.

Payments made to Eco Energy Corp and Sturgeon Estates Limited supposedly entitled investors to a percentage of profits made by a number of oil wells in Texas but there was no way to check these investments were in fact genuine.

Sales were ‘introduced’ by a network of companies including Sturgeon, a firm which previously sold Carbon Credits to the public as investments. Carbon Credits are widely acknowledged to be unsuitable for retail investors.

Eco and Sturgeon were found to have traded with a lack of transparency – both companies failed to keep proper books and records even though more than £1.5m had been received between them.

A number of payments made to customers in the guise of returns on their investments were in fact funded by money paid in by other investors.

Commenting on the case, Chief Investigator David Hill said: “The risks involved in investing were multiplied many times by those companies’ failures to attend to even basic principles of record keeping, corporate governance and due diligence.”