The FSA is set to challenge a property fund in court this week, according to a report in the Financial Times newspaper.

Later this week the FSA will be challenging the property firm, Semperian PPP Investment Partners, over claims the company breached rules on reporting corporate takeovers.

Despite bringing a number of criminal cases to court in recent years, this is only the FSA's second criminal case to date relating to a change of control for a regulated firm.

It has been claimed that Semperian failed to properly notify the financial watchdog of a deal done last January. The company didn’t wait for regulatory approval before finalising a deal to buy full control of a subsidiary from investment and property services company, Telereal, which was FSA-regulated.

However, the property company is expected to throw out the allegations, and it has also been revealed that the FSA may have endorsed the offer retrospectively.

If the property company is found to be in the wrong then they could be fined up to £20,000, with an additional fine of £10,000 levied against chief executive officer William Doughty.

The property company is chaired by Lord Currie, who is the former chairman of communications regulator, Ofcom.