Somehow, Hackney managed to remove the hurdles once Joginder Sangers empire had hold of the building, and a second application for "consent for alterations, extension or demolition of a listed building" was submitted in November 2010 and approved a year later.

Corporate Watch then scrutinised the Sanger empires account and discovered that through some innovative practices, the company had managed to pay virtually no tax for years, whilst the family members raked it in. According to Corporate Watch, the former 'asylum tycoon' and his family, despite paying ridiculously low amounts of tax on their companies were living it up. The innovative accounting practices

" may perhaps explain the Sanger family's multi-million house in Hampstead, with two Mercedes, a convertible Jaguar and a Lexus four-by-four in the drive. With at least 15 appointments as company director or secretary, Joginder Sanger is certainly earning a lot of money.

Corporate Watch, now keen to understand why an Occupy project had entered into what the 'Occupy press' described as an "amicable" agreement with the Sangers, approached the Occupy legal team for comment:

Now, given Mastcraft's reputation (alleged tax dodging, profiting from asylum seekers' misery, making vast profits from turning public listed buildings into luxury hotels, and so on and so forth), we may ask: should the occupiers enter into negotiations and agreements with the company? Shouldn't Joginder Sanger be one of those on trial at the 'people's court' instead of being thanked for “having the imagination to work with us”?

Occupy's legal team seem to agree with us and say they are determined to carry on with holding corporate criminals to account, with plans to develop contacts and resources to "allow lawyers across the country to get involved in real or mock trials against the one per cent". Yet the question remains: what do grassroots campaigners and activists gain from engaging with companies?

Corporate Watch have done a great job of exposing shady dealings by the owners of the building, and we think it is time for activists to ponder how Occupy statements thanked the Sangers, suggested such agreements should be templates for future deals with the 1%, and entered into an agreement which would see a public building lost to the 99% forever.

Will there be a twist in the tale before Monday, or just cause to lick our wounds and reconsider our tactics for the future?