This is incorrect. The original creator of the engine is Flavien Brebion and he is still head of I-Novae Studios - He attempted to licence it to others but never sell it altogether, maybe this is what you meant.

Article is misleading - The Quest for Earth was never started. What has been worked on by one man in his spare time for 10 years is the engine, from scratch. Now they’ve decided to build a game using that engine and have scalled back their original plans.