It has been announced that PokerStars has reached a deal with the DOJ to purchase FTP.
LATEST this evening is from online Poker Legend Shaun Deeb, saying the following on the popular 2+2 Poker Forum:
“Players will be paid within 90 days”
“FTP will be open in the US market”
“Isai Scheinberg (founder of PokerStars) will be stepping down from the company”"If these statements are true I feel that Isai deserves all our thanks+ business in the future with his company he is bailing out the igaming industry’s tarnished reputation.”
Comment from Eric Hollreiser Head of Corporate Communications PokerStars has just made a statement, it reads as follows:
We’ve had a lot of enquiries and there’s lots of speculation on the forums, so I wanted to address the PokerStars chatter. As you know, PokerStars is in settlement discussions with the U.S. Department of Justice. As such settlement discussions are always confidential, we are unable to comment on rumors. As soon as we have information to share publicly we will do so.
Below is the official announcement that GBT have pulled out of the FTP deal
Groupe Bernard Tapie regrets to announce that, after seven months of intensive work, our efforts to obtain final approval of the United States Department of Justice of the agreement to acquire the assets of Full Tilt Poker have ended without success.
Ultimately, the deal failed due to two major issues.
The parties could not agree on a plan for repayment of ROW players.
GBT proposed a plan that would have resulted in immediate reinstatement of all ROW player balances, with a right to withdraw those funds over time, based on the size of the player balance and the extent of the player’s playing activity on the re-launched site. All players would have been permitted complete withdrawal of their balances, regardless of whether they played on the site, by a date certain, and 94.9% of ROW players would have been fully repaid on day 1. DOJ ultimately insisted on full repayment with right of withdrawal within 90 days for all players– a surprise demand made in the 11th hour, after months of good-faith negotiations by GBT.
The legal complications surrounding the deal – specifically, questions surrounding the legality of the forfeiture under non-US laws – also proved unresolvable.
All of the key assets of the FTP companies reside outside of the United States. A non-US court well might regard the purported forfeiture as a “fraudulent transaction” and declare it invalid or deem the acquirer of the assets responsible for all of those creditor obligations.
Given the $80 million purchase price, and the substantial amount of cash needed to relaunch FTP, those issues ultimately proved too substantial to overcome.
GBT is very conscious of the hopes it has created – among FTP employees that they will retain their jobs, among FTP players that they will recover their balances, and among the entire poker community that the world’s finest poker platform will be relaunched and bring a needed added element of competition to a world market that today is fully dominated by a single operator.
GBT cannot accept the end of those hopes.
For that reason, unless a concrete and legally viable solution is found in the very coming days to save the employees and repay the players of FTP, we will move to our own plan of action.
We understand from press reports that the DOJ may have entered into an agreement with PokerStars pursuant to which PokerStars will acquire the FTP assets. If accurate, we can only assume that PokerStars determined that it was willing to accept these legal and financial risks in order to resolve its own legal situation with DOJ. If a PokerStars acquisition of FTP means that all FTP players will be fully repaid immediately, we are very happy for the players, as their final and full repayment has always been our priority.
We only regret that such a deal would signal further consolidation of a poker market already dominated by a single player – an outcome that may raise antitrust concerns and that, in the long run, is probably not good for players and for the whole online poker industry.”
LATEST:
Mr Behnam Dayanim the lawyer representing Groupe Bernard Tapie has spoken to the iGaming Post regarding the failed deal for Full Tilt Poker (FTP) and has confirmed that GBT has failed in their bid and the two main issues were as stated in the announcement from GBT.
Mostly the 90 day repayment was the most difficult to complete, Mr Dayanim also said that the deal only fell through yesterday and that they believe although cannot comment that PokerStars has agreed to the 90 day re-payment of players funds.
This looks like excellent news for all concerned both US and Rest of World players.
