Since the announcement of the proposed deal between the shuttered online poker site Full Tilt Poker and the French investment company Groupe Bernard Tapie at the end of September, there has been a long silence regarding future actions. Two incidents over the past couple of days demonstrate that there is still a long road ahead if and/or when the tentative agreement for the sale of the company would actually be consummated.

Of perhaps most interest to those who have money owed to them by the company are the continuing negotiations between Groupe Bernard Tapie and the U. S. Department of Justice. For the first time since the agreement was signed, an attorney for GBT,Behnam Dayanim, commented that these negotiations were still ongoing and that GBT has yet to take control of Full Tilt Poker.

Coming on the heels of the revocation of their gaming license by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission on Thursday, the inactive online site Full Tilt Poker reported Friday afternoon that a deal has been struck to sell the beleaguered company to a French investment group.

PokerStrategy.com broke the news yesterday in a statement from Full Tilt. In that statement, Full Tilt Poker said that the French investment organization Groupe Bernard Tapie had signed “an exclusive agreement” with the current board of directors to acquire the company and its assets. The potential purchase, which was alluded to during hearings at the AGCC in September and offered as a reason for the Full Tilt license to not be revoked, will allow the company to pay off players worldwide who want their money and, in particularly, in the United States, where the company is facing several legal hurdles. There are a few caveats to the deal, however.

The Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) announced yesterday that the public hearing regarding Full Tilt Poker’s remote gambling license will be held on Monday, September 19th at 9:00am at the Riverbank Park Plaza Hotel in London.

The original hearing was held on Tuesday, July 26th with the purpose of allowing both the AGCC and Full Tilt to present any evidence in support or in opposition to Full Tilt’s suspended license.  In the end, not much actually happened and the public hearing was adjourned until what was supposed to be September 15th at the latest.

It appears that the wait for refunds from Full Tilt Poker will continue.  According to a press release issued by the former second largest online poker room in the world to news outlet Pokernews.com, talks with the mystery European investors have come to a close.

In the press release, Full Tilt stated that it is starting negotiations with other possible investors now that the exclusivity period with the previous potential partner is over.  While the end of those negotiations obviously means that no deal was reached, it does not mean that a deal won’t eventually be reached.  Of course, it is not good for Full Tilt customers that the poker room must now enter talks with other investors, as that just means that repayments are not likely to be coming any time soon, but as long as there are some sort of talks, that is at least a positive step.