The legal claim will aim to prove that Tesco made misleading statements to the stock market which investors relied on when making investment decisions.

Tesco lost £2bn in stock market value in September 2014 after the supermarket admitted that it had found a ‘black hole’ in its accounts. In October 2014, Tesco announced that this ‘black hole ‘meant that they had over-stated its profits by £263m, the announcement then led to a 92% drop in interim profits and cut a further £1bn from Tesco’s market capitalisation.

The action is being funded by shareholder activist group, Bentham Europe and Stewarts Law will lead the case.

Jeremy Marshall, chief investment officer of Bentham Europe, said: ‘The misstatement of profits leading to a dramatic collapse in the Tesco share price caused substantial damage to many shareholders who manage money for thousands of investors.

‘Investors have a right to rely on statements made by companies to ensure that they correctly allocate capital. The claim will assert that Tesco’s misstatements are in clear breach of its obligations under the Financial Services & Markets Act and investors must be compensated.’

Sean Upson, the partner at Stewarts Law leading the case, said: ‘Tesco has misstated its accounts, and in particular its treatment of payments from suppliers, to give the appearance of static trading margins. The reality was that those margins were falling. Institutional investors were therefore misled when making investment decisions in respect of Tesco.

‘This is precisely the type of wrongdoing which the Financial Services and Markets Act was designed to redress and therefore to prevent.’

Three former Tesco executives, UK finance director Carl Rogberg, UK managing director Christopher Bush and food commercial director John Scouler, are to face trial in September 2017 on charges of fraud and false accounting relating to the accounting scandal. They have pleaded not guilty to the charges.