The remission trustee is in a better position to collect the phantom deposits, and giving the innocent players an opportunity to pay (and those perhaps not so innocent an opportunity to appear as if they are) by not releasing any names before giving them an opportunity to schedule repayment makes the most sense.

GBT must have thought that fear of having their names outed would have been sufficient motivation for these pro's to at least sign an agreement to make good on their debts.

Obviously, judging on his reaction, the idea that a guy like BG - sponsored by a site which does not (and likely never will) serve the US market - would wrap himself in the flag as an excuse not to agree to a repayment schedule, seemed unlikely when he agreed to buy their debt.

We were likely looking at a situation where the AFMLS would make an interim remission payment pro rata from the $80M, with the rest coming later after forfeitures and deposits were reconciled.

So if the deal still goes through, we can now thank Barry et all for that interim payment either not being made and we all have to wait for the collection process, or being 1x% lower than it would have been.

Thanks for looking out for us Bear, USA USA USA!

Interview with Bernard Tapie group Lawyer - http://www.pokerupdate.com/news/the-...poke-too-soon/

Looks fairly hopeful, seems like more significant problems than just the issue of pros owing money though.

“It is hard for me to quantify the most significant, or what will be the turning point. I will say that it is a substantial obstacle (The pros owing money) of a few obstacles, and unfortunately there are more obstacles of greater significance than we had hoped for. This is certainly one of them.”

“I cannot talk much about the others, but generally speaking, the company is in a more dire financial situation than we had hoped and expected in the start of the diligence process. We go through diligence to obtain a full understanding of the company's position. We're nearing the end, not at the end, and we have uncovered issues that need to be resolved in order for the deal to happen. This is one of them.”

I think that sounds pretty bad tbh. and looks like it threatens the deal to a higher extend than people on here are willing to realize :/

evan if i had to pay 1 billion i still wouldnt pay 20 mil more just for some scummy poker plrs loans.

Once again I can see no valid business (to relaunch FTP) reason for GBT to purchase debts of any kind and if the only deal on the table is that debts must be purchased as assets, then it should be all the debts ie also the phantom deposits.

Yeah we need to find out, cos if we know who's not paying back we definitely can apply pressure, like everybody who has seen pros IRL involved in this situation have done...

GBT is in a better position than the DOJ to collect the sponsored pro debt, with the exception of BG, most of them still have marketability they could exchange in return for some of what they owe.

The reverse is true for phantom deposits, a government trustee is much better equipped to go after those assets than Tapie ever would be, in addition to exposing their names, the government can put liens on their assets, recover their income tax refunds, put them on a blocked list when/if there is regulated US poker, etc.

The DOJ was doing these pros a favor by allowing them to deal directly with Tapie, and taking them up on that favor would have been in the best interest of all players - especially US players.

Tapie is either making a play to get a better deal after finding out more "crap" about the true situation FTP is in, OR the new info is enough to make him rethink the deal and he is really lining up some excuses (real ones) for backing off. I guess time will tell. The first is still the most likely, but the second is gaining some momentum, but I hope its not the endgame!

It's not so much about what us sitting behind our computers can do. Instead their outing will greatly hurt their chances of future sponsorship if they are not respected/admired by the poker community.

Tapie doesn't need an excuse to back off. All he's gotta say is he could not come to terms on a deal with FTP.

http://www.pokerupdate.com/news/the-...poke-too-soon/

article originally posted by stubez

in case anybody is looking for the pros who owe, Tapie/Dayanim mentions them here:

Dayanim: "Some of the players who owe larger amounts to Full Tilt Poker. Phil Ivey, Erick Lindgren, Layne Flack, David Benyamine, those are the larger ones. There are others as well, people like Barry Greenstein and Mike Matusow."

Im not sure if Tapie is bluffing, but it doesnt sound like it from reading that article. These pros need to step up and take care of their debts and stop talking about how much old management screwed up. Yes old mgmt screwed up, but you had no problem taking advantage of it for years. Time to man up. Also, funny to see Matusows name who had been on QJ running his mouth over and over

well there's another article out that said that some of the pro's did agree to pay back their debts so thats a good sign. We just need to figure out who's holding out.

You are right, he doesn't really "have" to explain much to anybody, but these guys do like to play a little PR to keep flaming to a minimum if the deal fails! What better excuse/reason could he find than former FTP owners/operators Effin up the deal at the last moment for selfish reasons (real or contrived)?

highly doubt its contrived, as BG has confirmed, and S:P confirmed a long time ago that DB and PI owe rather large sums as well

I still find it amusing...

News comes out that Ferguson is trying to recoup his $14 mil owed to him by FTP. Public reaction is screw you you're a thief and nobody owes you squat.

News comes out that poker pros owe millions to FTP. Public reaction is screw you, a debt is a debt and you should pay your debts even if it's to a bunch of thieves.

$30 mil in equity in about a week with very little work. I'm starting to admire this Tapie guy.

I still find it amusing...

Ferguson who was one of the biggest if not The biggest shareholder f*cks up every FTP player around the world for more then 300million and then asks for 14mil.. such an amusing story

But when you consider the bunch of thieves where the directors who will be forfeiting all equity in the new FT, the paying the debt to a bunch of thieves argument doesn’t apply anymore.

The thing is the money Ferguson is owed comes from dividends that he stole from the players in the first place. That doesn't count.

That's an interesting thought. Have you got any reason to think interim remission payments are consistent with the Regulations and with SOP?

2 things come to mind:

I think that, by his statement on here, BG has locked himself in but what about the others? I doubt there are promissory notes. We don't know if there are emails or what they contain if there are. For all we know it was understood that these were understood to be advances against future payments. Realizing that this is a prob GBT has to firm things up and it doesn't look good to me.

Second: You can't get blood from a stone.

well Tapie did say some of the pros have already agreed and they (Tapie lawyer and the pros) are in the process of writing up a contract for payment plan. have to imagine the guys that were contacted that did not respond are David Benyamin and Matusow (pure speculation but the guy is always crying broke, woe is me attitude and DB from all ive heard has always been a degen). So some progress has already been made between Tapie and some of the players. Just hope the rest man up and do what they should do, which is pay what they owe.

It would be interesting to know which have already agreed to pay and responded to Tapie calls, and which ones exactly have been ducking him...

Would also be nice to hear Ivey say something, he was by far the biggest face of the company and of poker for that matter, for him to continue to let his name be dragged in the mud without a response makes him look like hes taking no responsibility at all for his own actions or towards the players affected.

I once looked up to these "poker celebrities" on tv playing for millions of dollars as to me this was a testament to their skill and money management in such a volatile profession as gambling.

Of course now I know 99% of these guys are all degenerate losers playing with phantom money and Joan Rivers was right.

Sounds like some of the mob would like to get blood with a stone, tho.

+1 really want to hear a statement from Ivey saying he's planning on repaying his debt. Would help me restore my respect in him.

Some stuff doesn't seem to make sense.

Why would FTP being owed money from pro's be an obstacle now?

If Tapie was willing to pay 80 mega for tilts assets and make ROW players whole before completing their due diligence why would finding out players owe millions in debt to FTP now change that. If Tapie was willing to buy FTP before how does finding out that pro's owe money chance that? If anything it should make the deal better for Tapie. Tapie now finds out that players owe FTP and then GBT money(if they buy it), it's sort of a freeroll. They may be able to collect some money from these loans, money they likely didn't even know about about beforehand. If they were willing to pay ROW players,the DOJ and reopen the site before finding out about the loans then finding out some players took loans shouldn't chance anything.

Tapie must of found many more problems that could get in the way of the deal. I just can't see how finding out people took loans and owe FTP money can be one of them. Looks like after digging into the books of FTP they found lots of problems they didn't anticipate. Maybe FTP owes more money then they thought to parties besides players and Tapie is getting cold feet after having a good look at FTP.