Directors of the collapsed Louis Group in the island will have to face a disqualification hearing, a Deemster has ruled.

Disqualification would effectively mean a worldwide ban from being involved as a company director for a period of between two to 15 years.

And a breach of that order could result in an unlimited fine and/or up to two years in prison.

A liquidators’ report in 2014 concluded there was a ’taint of illegality’ across the vast majority of the business carried out by the Louis Group in the Isle of Man.

The collapsed group had been wound up by the high court the previous year, unable to pay its multi-million pounds debts.

The Financial Services Authority began high court disqualification proceedings against seven directors last June - Louis Group CEO Dr Alan Louis, Lynn Keig, John McCauley, Dirk Frederik Mudge, Lukas Nakos, Andrew Mark Rouse and Rousseau Moss.

Mr Moss, a pastor and director at the Living Hope Church in Port St Mary, has since offered a voluntary undertaking of disqualification which has been accepted by the FSA.

Breach of such an undertaking carries the same criminal penalties as breach of a disqualification order.

An initial hearing took place over two days on January 31 and February 1 when the lawyer acting for Mr Rouse and Mr Nakos argued the case had been brought out of time.

But Deemster Doyle ruled that the disqualification proceedings can go ahead and the application by the FSA was within time.

Mr Nakos is a team leader at the Living Hope church in Douglas.

Mr Rouse is a team leader at the same church.

Liquidators of Louis Group Isle of Man identified many areas of concern including a substantial loss of investor capital running into tens of millions of pounds with almost every island entity being insolvent.

They concluded there was highly improper activity with investor funds, a culture of fear and intimidation with Dr Louis having ultimate and absolute control, misleading promises of high returns and low risk, unlicensed deposit taking, inter-mingled funds, poor accounting records and evidence of substantial sums paid to Dr Louis and his trusts from money sourced from investors and accounted for as debts which he denies liability for.

Dr Louis denies wrongdoing and claimed he has been unjustly persecuted.

The disqualification hearing will be held on a date yet to be fixed.