Closing submissions have been given as a seven-week class action case against two insurance giants draws to an end.

The civil trial, involving a £100m compensation battle against island-based Friends Provident International and Utmost International Isle of Man, began at Douglas High Court on April 6.

No fewer than 739 investors, many who lost their life savings, are taking part in the class action.

Claimants, mainly British nationals and expats based across the world, say they were sold life assurance products which they were told were safe and low risk - but were based on investment funds which ultimately collapsed.

They argue that the companies misrepresented the products, and that they failed to carry out ‘some minimum standard of due diligence review’ on the underlying funds.

FPI and Utmost contest the claims. The court has heard that the litigation centres on ‘wrappers’ offered by FPI and Utmost to retail investors, by which they could allocate their invested funds into underlying funds not operated by FPI or Utmost.

Products were marketed through independent financial advisers and intermediaries not employed by either FPI or Utmost.

It is alleged the marketing was undertaken on the basis of documentation and information from FPI/ Utmost which was passed on directly to potential customers.

But in a closing submission, barrister for FPI Jonathan Nash KC said the documents received by the test claimants had gone through the ‘mediation of experienced independent financial advisers’ and it was they who would carry out asset vetting and selection for their clients - not the insurance company.

And he said ‘random remarks’ by certain witnesses were insufficient to build up a case that the IFAs were relying on Friends Provident to do due diligence so they didn’t have to or so that their own due diligence could be more limited.

Mr Nash said: ‘We are entitled on an objective analysis to say that each of the claimants had the benefit of experienced financial advice, whether it was good or bad.’

He said the idea that under a financial contract of this kind FPI would assume an obligation without spelling it out was ‘fanciful’.

In his closing submission William Buck, representing Utmost, described the claims as ‘hopeless’ and said they stand to be dismissed.

‘Because they are hopeless - both factually and legally,’ he said.

He said to make an objective assessment on whether representations were made you had to determine which documents were actually received and read by the test claimants.

Mr Buck said the claims made against his client and FPI were almost identical and it should come as no surprise that Utmost’s submissions were similar to those of FPI.

‘There is no conspiracy against the claimants - we are responding like FPI has done to the same claims,’ he told the court.