News from the Full Tilt Poker deal are taking too long and tension is rising, for the many players who are hanging on, waiting for positive news regarding the sale of the once titanic Full Tilt Poker to the French ‘Group Bernand Tapie’ (GBT). The Department Of Justice (DOJ) has been stalling by keeping tight lipped about the procedure and has given no indication of when player repayment will resume.
“We are waiting to hear back from the DoJ and still hoping to finalize an agreement,” said GBT attorney Behnam Dayanim. “It takes time. We have an oral understanding with the DoJ that we’re trying to reduce to writing.”
What looked like a glimmer of hope a little over a week ago, seems like it was nothing more than “cheap talk” as players who thought that their accounts would be unfrozen in the announced timeline of 2 weeks, still haven’t got access to their funds.
“I’m still optimistic it will get done quickly,” Dayanim added. “Certain factors are outside of our control, but the estimate Laurent gave [two weeks] is a reasonable one.” The DoJ has decided that Tapie’s group will have to complete the acquisition terms with Full Tilt Poker and is expected that the board of directors will be forced to approve any valid sale.
Earlier this month, the Full Tilt CEO, Ray Bitar has sent an email to the company’s shareholders and that has also been spread out amongst the poker industry stating that the DoJ would be liable for reimbursing the players from the US. The rest of the world players would be under responsibility of the GBT. The decision to split the two player pools has been suggested by GBT attorney Dayanim.
“There are two big differences between U.S. and Rest-of-World players (ROW),” stated by the GBT lawyer. “One difference is that the DoJ views the activity of Full Tilt in offering wagers to U.S. players as being unlawful. It doesn’t take that view with ROW players.”
Referring to the second difference between American and ROW players, Dayanim explained, “From Tapie’s perspective, there’s a difference in that the ROW players will continue to be players with a re-launched site. Contrastingly, Tapie will have no further interaction with U.S. players.”
The other main concern for many players is to how long will it be for Full Tilt to be operational again and start accepting wagers from non-U.S. players apart from being reimbursed with all their funds.
“It’s a two-step process,” Dayanim rapidly replied. “The first step is an agreement with the DoJ. The next step is an agreement between Full Tilt and Tapie. We still need to get the first step done. Then, there needs to be a period of due diligence. Once that period closes, if we close on the acquisition, then we’ll be able to get the site running in short order. In terms of reimbursing players, it all depends on the details of the agreement with the DoJ.”
Full Tilt board member and pro player, Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson has recently filed a claim that the negotiations of sale of Full Tilt will have no bearing on the players’ funds seized by the government.
“We had no involvement in the filing of the claims, but we were aware that they were being filed,” Dayanim said. “The claims present no concern to us, and likewise present no concern with respect to our ongoing negotiations with the DoJ.”
