The Duke of York’s flagship project is being shut down in the UK while directors of its overseas arm have indicated they will quit if he does not relinquish control.

Pitch@Palace CIC, which is based in Buckingham Palace, is being wound up after trustees concluded it had no future in the wake of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

But the Duke is refusing to give up its sister company Pitch@Palace Global, prompting three of its directors to offer their resignations.

While Pitch@Palace CIC is a non-profit-making company and is controlled by the Prince Andrew Charitable Trust, the overseas arm Pitch@Palace Global is owned by the Duke himself and was set up to make profits by brokering deals between tech start-ups and wealthy investors.

Three of the remaining five directors of Pitch@Palace Global, a Dragons’ Den-style corporate project, have told the Duke that its future is untenable while it retains an association with him. The imminent departures of Martin Dunnett, a private equity executive, Alex Johnston, an app developer and investor and Martin Harriman, a telecoms entrepreneur, would leave only two directors at the helm: Amanda Thirsk, the Duke’s private secretary, and Johan Eliasch, a sports tycoon and close friend.