The British subsidiary of the world’s biggest direct selling group may be closed by the Government as a result of an investigation into its business practices, The Times has learnt.

Amway, which has 12,000 agents in Britain and worldwide sales of $6.4 billion (£3.2 billion), will face a High Court petition on Monday to wind up its activities.

Amway’s salespeople have become a familiar sight on doorsteps since they arrived in Britain in 1973. However, the company has been accused of being more interested in selling mo-tivational books, tapes and seminars to its salespeople rather than pushing its merchandise.

The petition, brought on behalf of John Hutton, the Business Secretary, seeks to close the company in the “public interest”. A spokeswoman for Mr Hutton’s department said that a review of Amway’s activities had been carried out by the Companies Investigation Branch. “CIB investigates companies where matters come to our attention and it is considered that a good reason exists to proceed with an investigation,” she said.

Although the company has sales of only £12.5 million in Britain the legal action could seriously damage its reputation. Amway has a sales network of three million people that spans more than 80 countries.

Amway said that it had responded to the investigation by imposing a three-month moratorium on recruitment of new distributors in the UK and a ban on the sale of of motivation-al tapes and literature not produced by the company.

Last month more than 4,000 of its salespeople attended a conference in Birmingham to discuss the future of the company. Mark Beiderwieden, managing director of Amway Europe, told the conference: “We will invest what it takes to remain in this market and build it to its fullest potential.”

A spokesman for Amway (UK) Ltd, said yesterday that the company was facing action on three grounds but denied that they included laws banning pyramid-selling.

In 1983, Amway pleaded guilty to defrauding the Canadian government through criminal tax evasion and paid $25 million in fines.

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