Liquidators of a failed investment fund say they now have more than 200,000 documents in their possession.

New Earth Recycling and Renewables (NERR), part of the New Earth Group of Funds, which invested in recycling plants in the UK, went into liquidation in June last year.

Its liquidation is being funded by the Manx taxpayer.

NERR’s assets were principally investments by way of equity and unsecured loans in three UK-based companies - New Earth Solutions Group Ltd, New Earth Solutions Facilities Management Ltd and New Earth Energy Facilities Management Ltd.

NERR and its two feeder funds had a valuation of $292.22m and a total of 3,249 investors.

But at the time of its winding up, the value of those investments was close to zero.

Joint liquidator Alexander Adam of Deloitte and David Craine, of island-based Browne Craine & Co, have been investigating the reasons for NERR’s failure.

They want to establish whether there is a case to take legal action against any party deemed liableï?·for the failure.

In their latest report to shareholders and creditors, the joint liquidators say: ’Our investigations are focused on the matters which resulted in a direct loss to the company - the value of investments made in the ultimately insolvent UK trading companies and the fees paid by the company to the various service providers.

’To date, we have secured in excess of 200,000 unique documents from the various advisers and service providers, many of which run to hundreds of pages.’

The joint liquidators say their initial review of those documents has identified a number of potential issues which could lead to causes of action. They have passed these to their legal advisers.

They add: ’That review remains ongoing. The review of such a volume of documentation is time consuming but essential to understanding the underlying business and transactions of the fund.’

The joint liquidators say they have managed to secure access to the records of a service provider which had previously been unwilling to share its files.

They remain ’reasonably confident’ their investigation will result in claims made for the benefit of creditors and shareholders.

Funding for the liquidation by the Financial Services Authority is subject to ongoing review and can be withdrawn at any time.