Sheeran is sued for the second time over claims he copied Marvin Gaye on 2014 hit song

ED SHEERAN is being sued for $100 million (£75.8 million) by a banker who claims he copied Marvin Gaye.

The singer has been accused of plagiarising parts of Gaye’s 1973 classic Let’s Get It On for his hit Thinking Out Loud. According to legal documents lodged in New York, Sheeran’s 2014 track copies the “melody, rhythms, harmonies, drums, bass line, backing chorus, tempo, syncopation and looping” of Gaye’s song.

The claim has been brought by a company called Structured Asset Sales (SAS), which owns part of the copyright of Gaye’s song.

Gaye co-wrote the track alongside Edward Townsend in 1973. Townsend died in 2003 but SAS bought one-third of the copyright. Sheeran, 27, has already faced legal action over the track after the heirs of Townsend also said Thinking Out Loud copied Let’s Get It On. He has denied those allegations.

The album X, which features Sheeran’s song, sold more than 15 million copies. The track was nominated for a Grammy in 2015.

Other defendants listed in the claim include SONY/ATV Music Publishing, the Atlantic record label and Amy Padge, Sheeran’s co-writer on the song.

SAS is owned by David Pullman, the creator of the so-called Bowie Bonds, which saw David Bowie sell off bonds for $55 million backed by royalties from his catalogue.

Gaye was shot dead by his father in Los Angeles in 1984, aged 44.

 Sheeran’s dream of building a private chapel in the grounds of his estate has been dashed by council planners who ruled it would create “a jarring anomaly in the landscape” and give the impression that his village has two churches.

The multimillionaire wanted to construct a flint and stone chapel with a Saxon-style round tower and walls distressed to look like “ruins”. He became engaged to Cherry Seaborn earlier this year and reportedly hoped to celebrate their marriage in the chapel, which would be “strictly non-denominational and for spiritual regeneration of both traditional and less traditional types”.

However, after fending off a claim that the building would threaten a colony of endangered great crested newts, Sheeran’s application was turned down yesterday by Suffolk Coastal district council. The council ruled that the local village already has a tall church tower visible from a distance.