Cliffs:

April 15th Black Friday - The Department of Justice shuts down US operations of FTP, Pokerstars and UB.

April 26th - Pokerstars allows US players to cash out but Full Tilt Poker does not allow US players access to their funds. As reported by Pokeraddict.net.

May 31st - The WSOP starts and a few team FTP pros showed like Allen Cunningham, John Juanda and Erick Lindgren but notably absent were Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson and Howard Lederer.

June 1st - Phil Ivey sues Full Tilt poker in an effort to get out of his non-compete clause. It was reported by Wicked Chops that Ivey was particularly upset because he had brought in an investor that would have got FTP out of their financial mess but the deal was nixed by Bitar and Lederer.

June 26th - It's reported Phil Ivey is in Dublin meeting with FTP executives.

June 29th - Alderney Gambling Control Commission suspends FTP's gaming license and in effect shuts FTP down.

June 30th - Phil Ivey voluntarily dismisses his lawsuit against FTP.

July 1st - Todd terry files a class action lawsuit against FTP. (this date is approximate. Sorry for not being sure of exact date)

July 22nd - Poker News Daily reported that Phil Gordon was dismissed with prejudice from Todd Terry's class action lawsuit against FTP. Phil Gordon's attorney claimed he didn't take part in the day to day operations of FTP.

July 26th - As reported by Pokernews there was a hearing between FTP and the AGCC to determine whether FTP's gaming license should continue to be suspended. It was supposed to be a public hearing but in private lawyers for FTP asked for an application to adjourn the meeting until a later date which was granted. The new hearing date was set to be September 15th.

July 29th - Subjectpoker.com releases a statement talking about some of the financial dealings between David Benyamine, Phil Ivey and FTP.

July 29th - Mike Matusow does an interview with Quad Jacks and talks a bit about the FTP situation.

August 1st - As reported by Subject Poker the Kahnawake gaming commission agreed to renew FTP's secondary client provider authorization.

August 18th - As reported by Stayonpoker.com a second class action lawsuit against FTP has been filed by two Canadian players.

August 22nd - FTP's silence is finally broken when attorney Jeff Ifrah speaks out and gives some minor details about the FTP situation. Certain 2+2ers have spoken with him on the phone and been corresponding back and forth through emails with the attorney. Ifrah reported he was finally able to speak about the situation because an exclusivity agreement between a potential investor and FTP expired.

August 30th - FTP releases another statement, including details about $115M they claim has been seized over the past two years, that there are indeed investors who are actively examining FTP for purchase, and that any deal will result in new management at FTP.

August 31st - FTP lawyer Jeff Ifrah and his firm files a motion with the court asking to be relieved as attorneys for the defense due to an "unreasonable financial burden" on the firm.

September 14 - FTP releases another statement which includes references to upcoming personnel cuts and that negotiations with investor(s) is ongoing.

September 15th - Scheduled hearing date between FTP and the Alderney Gambling Control Commission to determine whether FTP's gaming license will be renewed and allowing them to again service non-US based customers. On Sept. 5th, the hearing was announced for September 19th (a four day delay) due to logistical issues.

September 19th-20th - Scheduled hearing began behind closed doors ("in camera") and was adjourned until the next day. Hearing resumed on the 20th. On the 20th, multiple news agencies broke the story that the DOJ had amended their civil complaint to include charges against Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, and Rafe Furst in relation to running a "global Ponzi scheme". While FTP was originally told the hearing with AGCC would reconvene on the 22nd, on the 21st it was released that the hearing was concluded; FTP must now wait for the AGCC's decision.

September 21st - Mr. Ifrah and poker news sites revealed that there is a potential investor for FTP currently interested. The results of the AGCC hearing are not yet released.

September 29th - The AGCC releases their decision - three of the four licenses for the corporations that make up FTP are revoked. Both FTP and the DOJ release statements after the decision is made public (thanks to vamoose).

September 30th - Poker Strategy report that Full Tilt Poker and Groupe Bernard Tapie Sign Acquisition Agreement. 'This agreement, which includes the repayment of Full Tilt Poker’s world-wide players in full, is subject to several conditions; the first of which is a favorable resolution with the United States Department of Justice. Discussions with the United States Department of Justice will begin immediately.'

September 30th - iGaming France Interview with Laurent Tapie - 'Laurent Tapie says he believes in the Full Tilt project and has the funds to repay players, but admits there is “still a long way to go”

October 4th - Subject Poker addresses some of the confusion surrounding the recent Acquisition Agreement, clarifying that GBT does indeed intend to buy a large majority of FTP and not 5-10% as reported by other news sites.

October 7th - Subject Poker reports that GBT Seeks to Preserve Assets by appointing a Cheif Restructuring Officer who will in effect replace the current Board of Directors at FTP.

November 1st - Subject:Poker and other sites report that the US DOJ and the Groupe Bernard Tapie (GBT) reached an agreement that will allow the sale of FTP to GBT. Full details are not released in this initial report, but an email from Bitar to Tiltware shareholders revealed that GBT will assume responsibility for non-US player accounts, while the DOJ will assume responsibility for US players.

November 17th - A signed deal between the DOJ and GBT is announced. The terms of the deal state that FTP will surrender all assets to the US DOJ, who in turn will sell those assets to GBT for $80M USD. US players will need to petition the DOJ for reimbursement of their prior FTP accounts, while non-US players will be handled by GBT. Exact details on when and how payments to both sets of players are not yet available, nor has a date for the re-opening of FTP yet been disclosed. The deal must be approved by 2/3 majority of Tiltware shareholders in order to be approved.

I took no part in writing these cliffs. Thanks to EYESCREW, AnAnonymousCoward, Prospace, and Hash1982 for providing cliffs. Please PM me if you think that something should be added or changed.

Some other containment threads and big threads that sorta acted like contaiment threads:

• Full Tilt chatter containment thread
• Alderney suspends FTP license - **ALL PLAY AND CASHIER HALTED**
• Los Angeles Times: Full Tilt Poker to be sold to European investors
• alderney update
• FTP in "exclusive bargaining agreement" with investors, there is no conditional deal yet.
• AGCC/FTP Hearing Thread (Hearing now delayed until September)
• Q+A with Jeff Ifrah, a lawyer associated with FTP
• FTP Statement 8/31 - $150M+ Seized/Stolen, 6 Potential Investors
• FTP Statement 9/14
• DOJ amends civil complaint to include Lederer, Ferguson, and Furst
• 2p2 Thread on French Investors

The Rules

This is where discussion about FTP should primarily take place. If you start another thread about a minor event or your views or whatever, it will be locked. (That's because a lot of people read NVG to read about high stakes action and tournament results and to see silly photoshops and stuff, and we need to respect that.)

If something significant happens, feel free to start a new thread.


Mod note: This thread is for ongoing FTP dialogue/discussion - new FTP updates may have separate threads as events warrant. Please bear the far more stringent rules for this forum in mind if you choose to discuss the FTP situation in this forum rather than NVG.

I think you are correct about needing a court order. It is my understanding that in cases of this sort, if a settlement is reached, the parties take the terms of the settlement to court and the court makes the appropriate order.

Agreed.

The government has not described the money received by shareholders as obtained by theft. The theft was by the BoD, not the shareholders. You seem to treat the money received by the sharehlders as the same money as was stolen. Legally it is not.

When the board authorizes a dividend payment, the payment is either proper or it isn't. If it is proper, then the act is one of the Directors taking money from the company and giving it to the shareholders. Legally, ths is not what happens when an improper dividend is paid. In such a case it is regarded as the Directors taking the money and keeping it.

The treatment of the payment to shareholders as a gift stems from the fact that the Directors remain liable for this improper dividend whether they pay it out or not. The payment to the shareholders is deemed not to be made from the money the Directors took (if it was, then the shareholders would be liable instead of the Directors.) Therefore it is treated as a gift from the Directors to the shareholders.

I think the the priority of claim that forfeiture gives to government is so decisive that there is no point attempting to get an injunction.

The problem that I have w/ this is that it doesn't seem right to me BUT you're one of the only posters itt that are worth reading so I can't dismiss it. Picture me scratching the top of my head in the fashion while wondering 'is he right?'

Is there any solid/accepted reasoning (or even speculation) as to why the FTP shareholders vote has taken so long to put together? Any sources indicating a timeline on this vote?

Thanks,

Andrew

I keep wondering this every day. I thought this was going to be just formality. Why the hell is it taking even longer than the DOJ-GBT deal? I doubt that the shareholders would have the nerve to not accept the deal, but who knows. :/

If only we had this subforum a few months ago and invited Jeff I. to post here, he'd probably still be informing us.

The shareholders can only vote on the finalised deal, right? So if there is a delay I doubt it's the vote itself. There's probably a few wrinkles that need ironed out and no need for wholesale panic just yet!

People with supposed business/legal knowledge from the other thread have suggested that negotiations on stuff like this normally takes months.

If we haven't heard anything by the end of January then it's time to start worrying imo.

Most of this currently is speculation (although some claim to have inside sources), but the current understanding seems to be that the negotiations are proceeding, and we should expect to hear something "soon".

I do think it's premature to worry - this is a multi-million dollar deal of an insolvent company with a fairly large set of shareholders. A few weeks seems a pretty standard timeframe to negotiate a deal, although I admit I have no personal experience in negotiation such deals.

I think if we don't hear something by after the holidays it will be more worrisome, but that's just my personal opinion.

Also don't forget this is the Holiday period, it shouldn't but this will cause some delays. Imo we are going to hear something very big between now and next Friday, but I wouldn't really worry until say, second Friday of January. If it takes that long this topic will have become something special though .

Has anyone postulated a "worst case" scenario? Under what circumstances would we potentially not get ANY money back? Under what circumstances would we potentially only get a percent of our money back? By "we" I mean US players with money on Full Tilt, but it could also be an exercise for ROW, too.

Are there reasonable scenarios where players would not get any of the money seized or FTP's assets?

I think this may be a little skewed. While the plan may have always been to see that all players are repaid, it was never clear whether GBT would "legally" be allowed to do so. Keep in mind, this is not FTP returning players funds as PS did, but a new company, that would be sending $ to US players. Presumably that is one of the main reasons for the US payments having to be done thru the US govt.

As to CF getting a 19% stake in the new company, that was never going to happen, with or without the DOJ intervention. That would surely be the best case of "the fox guarding the henhouse" you could imagine. There was some consideration originally that current owners may have been able to either convert some equity into equity in the new company, or to actually purchase same, but it would always have been on a diluted basis, nothing like the % they previously held in FTP1, and would have been just a minimal percentage in total. In addition, such equity would have been entirely passive, no management input or votes etc. Many would say that is still more than they deserve, but the DOJ's stipulation that at least the BOD not have any part in the new company settled that argument completely. Few can argue with that decision imo.


Not only does CF deserve to receive nothing from GBT or anyone else, he should be paying back anything he did take out, and so should anyone else that accepted distributions. As for being "his baby", I would venture to say that concept conjures up a cross between "child-abuse", "contributing to the delinquency of a minor" and whatever other charges would apply to using ones child to take advantage of others for ones personal gain.
To be clear, I mean this not only for CF but for any other of the BOD or owners that have your money.

IMO, this ship already sailed long ago. Not calling out any shareholders specifically here, but if they were concerned about players being paid, whether by throwing the BOD under the bus or otherwise, they have had plenty of opportunities to do so before now, years worth in fact. Instead, they were all quite happy to accept those monthly distribution payments and turn a blind eye to anything else that was happening.

Hey D_F good to see you back in here, have you been working on any new pieces to let us know any new "good" news sir ?

Is this link of interest to anyone in here , compiled by the same guy that found the glitch in the new anon tables at bodog I think ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtBQ6bT3RrA

For your perusal folks any thoughts on this ?
Is this info now safe or what ?



DJ Ricco Law
Last edited by DJRiccoLaw; Today at 03:38 PM. Reason: P.S is hellmuth heading for FTP2 sponsorship deal ?

Most poker sites do this. Lots of companies other than poker sites do it too.

I don't really have a problem with it. I'd have a problem with that data getting leaked, but ******** provides no evidence that they don't keep that data securely.

If you can't trust a poker site to be able to do this safely then you really shouldn't play there at all. There's never been any leaks of personal data from FTP afaik anyway.

Are the cliffs in the OP updated? I've haven't been following this too closely and I'm trying to catch up. Thanks in advance.

I don't think anything significant happened after the DOJ-GBT deal, so they should be up-to-date.

Everything is up to date, Thanks for this mods.

Noah far from flying in the face of those in the know, ( your good self and D_F) but didn't the balances of certain players get leaked by FTP, whose to say what the old FTP may have done with this very private data?

Any further updates on any new news on the way to us shortly ?

Thanks for all the effort thus far much appreciated




DJ Ricco Law

I went looking for the data that I leaked, and I got it. I obviously had no interest in any of the data that kyle's talking about, so I didn't look for it, but I also didn't see it fwiw.

Huge apologies if this has been brought up ad nauseam already, but of course one of the last times such a sizable amount of funds was seized, then returned after a substantial wait, was the Neteller situation in 2007.

I've been able to locate some old news articles detailing how to go about initiating withdrawals: players logged into their accounts, they could arrange for an EFT to the bank account on record OR have a check sent to their registered addresses, etc. I also know there was a six-month window of opportunity during which players had to request. Furthermore, it appears the request period (July 2007-Jan. 2008) began several months after news surfaced that they would finally happen (March 2007).

For those who went through this process, whether you drew large sums or just a few hundred, how easy/tedious was it? And how long did it take to have everything fully resolved from the time you placed the request for your funds?

Of course, I recognize the Full Tilt situation is already quite different. If nothing else, Neteller was able to process its own transactions while the Full Tilt payments will be coordinated by the DOJ (for U.S. players, anyway). And my guess is that no one had any reason to believe their Neteller account balances weren't backed by actual dollars. So I admit I'm dealing with apples and oranges to some degree. I'm just trying to get a handle on how fast this type of machinery operates. My sense is that the PokerStars withdrawal process was an anomaly.

I just want to address this part since I don't remember much about what exactly went on w/ Neteller except that it was a long sweat. The Stars withdrawal wasn't an anomaly. It so happened that they kept their word: Player's funds WERE safe and secure and once they got the DOJ's cooperation they returned it all.

You can only call the Stars case an anomaly if standard practice in the industry is to not keep player's funds safe.



Errrrrrrrr...........

Haha yeah, that's fair. By anomaly, I just meant the smoothness of the final cashout procedure in the wake of Black Friday. That was one click, maybe a checked box and a payment in less than a week. I was surprised (albeit pleasantly so) at how easy it was. But, as you said, the expedience of the PokerStars cashout was the result of a company operating responsibly.

Pre-BF or even pre-UIGEA, my past cashouts at other sites never went that smoothly. I had to upload scans of utility bills and government-issued ID for one site, I had to round to the nearest $10 increment for another, etc. 'Tis why I'm curious to learn how the Neteller withdrawals went four years ago.

this might help to calm down those who panicked about not having received an update lately:
http://pokerfuse.com/news/poker-room...anish-license/

(mods pls move if this rather belongs into the nvg thread)

This is fantastic news, my only question for those who have hinted recently at news "coming soon" is, is this the particular news you were hinting at, or is this another related piece of GREAT news? I was hoping the news we would hear would be the GBT-FTP related news, but obviously if GBT is applying for licenses he is anticipating owning an online gaming company. Sure is a friendly turn card though

The first window for operators to apply for a license ends this week,

I really don't like being the wet blanket so ofen but GBT may simply be operating under the time line set by the Spanish authorities.

This part should be better news:

Understandably, one explicit condition on receiving a license from the Spanish gambling authority is the full reimbursement of all Spanish players’ funds, according to Poker-Red’s sources.