A HIGH Court judge will today decide the future of a controversial money-making "scam" which is believed to have netted up to £320 million.

Today's decision by Vice Chancellor Sir Richard Scott comes after failed, last-ditch attempts by representatives of the Titan Business Club to clinch a compromise deal with the Department of Trade and Industry.

The DTI's move against Titan and German parent company SHV comes after it was said to have recruited 125,000 members from Blackburn, Burnley and throughout the North West, Midlands and Scotland.

The scheme, which recruits members for a payment of £2,500, has been branded a scam in Parliament.

Details of Titan were first revealed in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph on March 5.

Sir Richard will rule on a request from the DTI for a provisional liquidator to be appointed pending the hearing of the winding-up application later this month.

Yesterday, lawyers for Titan offered to let DTI inspectors sit in on all their razzmatazz-filled recruitment meetings and promised not to increase the joining fee for at least six months.

But Mr Roger Kaye QC, for the DTI and Board of Trade president Ian Lang, rejected the offer, saying it might give the impression the Government approved of the scheme.

Lawyers for Titan and parent German company SHV have argued during a four-day hearing that such an appointment would prove disastrous for the money-circulation scheme.

They said hundreds of recent recruits would be prevented from persuading others to join and thus recoup and profit from their investment.

The scheme produces no product and profits are generated purely through the introduction of new "partners".

The judge was told the scheme was not illegal and people were not fooled into joining.

But the DTI argued the scheme was bound to fail eventually and gullible members of the public should be protected now through the organisation being put out of business.

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