Nova, Japan’s biggest chain of language schools closed yesterday leaving thousands of foreign instructors jobless.

The company owns about 900 schools, has 418, 000 students and mainly offers English classes. It has 7,000 employees, 4,000 of them foreigners, according to the Japanese media. Many of the employees have not been paid for months.

Nova promised through advertising campaigns opportunities for “international exchange.”

But the problems appeared earlier this year when the Supreme Court ruled that the firm acted illegally when it refused to refund the money to students who cancelled their contracts. In June the company was asked to close down some schools after the misleading campaigns.

Due to the negative publicity enrolments declined leaving the school incapable of paying the teachers, some of them facing eviction because the firm didn’t paid their rent, that is deducted from the salaries. The 2,000 Japanese staff didn’t receive their salary since July and the 4,000 foreign instructors from September.

According to BBC the British embassy in Tokyo said in a statement that it cannot provide financial assistance but put an advice page on the website in order to put the British teachers in touch with a travel agency that could provide cheap flights to UK.

A spokesman of the embassy told the Guardian: “We are doing everything we can in terms of consular support and advice but the one thing we can’t do is provide direct financial assistance.”

Nova accumulated debts of JPY50bn ($437m, £213m).

The court appointed two lawyers to sort out Nova’s debts and monitor its assets and to find sponsors to rebuild it. If within a month that is not possible they would have to dissolve the company.

According to Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun the Japanese internet firm Rakuten Inc took interest in helping the company.