Now thats food for hope.......

As per other discussions in this thread the DoJ could still therefore maintain a claim on FTP assets if any deal comes to completion and Tapie doesnt pay the RoW players (mechanism for repayment aside).

So now we need to know if the DoJ will maintain a claim or turn a blind eye if a deal gets completed with regard to RoW players getting repaid

Thanks for the answers (still intrigued as to why The DoJ appears not to have followed through on trying to take away those companies and their assets from the current owners)

You're clearly not understanding. The DOJ has done everything it can to get FTP's assets; in other words, it has sued for them. That's all it can do.

I'm not saying you're wrong; you aren't wrong.

I just want to add some important things (I think):

The DOJ don't give a crap about us, if they help us get our money it's out of political pressure, not justice. They aren't good guys in all this.

Despite that magic piece of paper (the Constitution) the government does what it wants. I personally know people who had homes and in one case a business seized on ACCUSATIONS that never made it to trial over drugs. This isn't new or unknown, there are hundreds of thousands of people who forfeited property without charges or trial in the war on drugs. All it takes is an accusation if that's wtf they say...they have the guns. The hopeful thing here is, unlike the NARCS, the DOJ isn't funded and dependent on seizures of private property to maintain job security.

When I was 16, a 19 year old friend (who was a drug dealer, but that's besides the point in court; proof is required according the "due process" clause) was pulled over with $15,000 in cash in his pocket (he was on his way to re-up). They found no drugs, but nonetheless refused to return the cash. They said it was because he didn't have job...BUT...they never turned it over to the IRS. He never had to explain the cash.

Same guy about 6 monthes later...two NARCS (one my father's first cousin) walks into his house and put guns on us (point them at us, demand hands up, etc.). They proceed to rob us after they couldn't find drugs. They took clothes out of his dresser that were brand new, all our money, and two packs of cigarettes. They had no warrant or probable cause to mention, just felt like robbing us again.

The "law" and government is a mafia who does wtf they want when they want. If they want to return our money, they will, if they don't, they won't. No law on paper will stop them, and they'll laugh in your face if you think otherwise. I'm hoping we've made enough noise to ensure political pressure leaves them feeling like turning over deadbeats to the IRS (I paid my taxes on my BR they have) is more advantageous than just robbing us. This worked for us...we donated to city councilman via a proxy and magically we only saw friends raided and arrested, not robbed and treated like a personal piggy bank for the narcotics cops.

Political pressure is our friend.

No disrespect Noah, AT ALL. You are right (as always...lol). But I just thought it important to keep what govt can and can't do in perspective of what they actually do any other time i.e., wtf they want.

That being said, I think we have good shot at getting all our money back in the USA right away, and the ROW soon after...the question for me is when will this happen? I'm taking the under on the over/under April 15 (for the USA), but if it goes over April 15 of this coming year (tax day I think; usually is) it will not be until near the following April, or the one after that, etc.

The incentive they have is back taxes, so I see them trying to get stuff done near tax time one year or another.

Thank God I kept up with my taxes on this stuff...those who didn't will catch hell trying to get "square with the house"...I know, I didn't file once for 4 years and it was a pain in the ass getting caught up.

Yes my position on this has never changed and nothing to date has made me believe otherwise.

Players are only going to get their money back if the shareholders give some of the dividend money back. The only question is whether they give that money back voluntarily or involuntarily. Its that simple.

I will repeat myself again......

It is blatantly obvious that nobody is prepared to pay enough to cover all Player funds back (or nobody has been prepared to do so to date) because FTP isnt worth that much otherwise it would have happened by now.

Hence the price tag has to come down.

The most obvious source for money that brings down the purchase price is from the current FTP shareholders (and another source may be the DoJ). It would be nice to believe there is an investor prepared to put up all the money but I do not believe such a person exists.

How much they have to give back to fascillitate a deal being done that gives all players there money back is the $300 million dollar question and I guess we are going to find out what that figure is eventually.

The more FTP shareholders give back the better chance of an acceptable and finalized deal being agreed. However if that figure is close to zero then I'm afraid I cant see how any deal is ever going to be agreed as any new owner would simply owe way too much (assuming any new owner is legally made to assume the debt).

Even without any deal that saves the company itself some FTP shareholder money has to come back to pay the players anyway.

So either way FTP shareholder money is going to contribute to player refunds either with or without a Tapie or anyone else's deal and that money will have to come back voluntarily or involuntarily otherwise players are going to get next to nothing back..

I have no clue what all this babble and nitpicking is about so I have a question for you all

Are we still in the same boat as we were when noah posted his last article?

Basically just waiting for details of a deal that was supposed to take 15 days or so?

What did Scott say when you asked him?

If it was a simple matter of saying Full Tilt Poker owes it's investors $xxxM and can't pay like those other cases, the DOJ could probably force their hand, but here there is no Full Tilt Poker but a bunch of companies with corporate liability veil and even the creditor status of player accounts isn't settled law like investment accounts.

To pierce the corporate veil I think they will have to be found guilty of something, so in the mean time the DOJ has pretty much done everything I think it can do by arresting the assets until/unless there is a settlement or a conviction.

Haven't talked to my contact. Last they said was boom headshot cause they got most of the details correct

Are we any closer?

Any progress made so far since the "agreement"

I think the most obvious source of money is the one Tapie seems to be counting on - poker players, if the site is a success then the profits will be the primary source of our repayment.

Noah,

You hear anything regarding this vote or how certain people are voting? Shouldnt this be a formality?

Isnt the liklihood of jail going up significantly if this vote doesnt go through.

please explain exactly which shareholders have money to pitch in and approximately how much you expect these people to pitch in.

Phil Ivey was willing to pitch in his 15 million dollar Cabo mansion according to one of my friends.

lol no one knows exact numbers of what is left but they have plenty and as of now have given back zero afaik

who does?

There's about 25 shareholders iirc. They can't have all degened away all their dividends surely.

I'm sure the DoJ has frozen personal foreign bank accounts for a reason

Are you kidding? Plenty more than 25. Two staff sued for there shareholding (freak/weird dude guy and some other guy - google it) and of staff at that level have % then you can bet plenty more do too.

Doesnt really matter how many there are. Facts are they have plenty of player money still in their hands and I am very curious as to how their actions with this money that isnt theirs affects the relaunch of FTP2.

You are right that they don't care about doing a good deed for US players.

But they do have a vested interest in players getting paid back. They are an arm of the government. The government has an interest in legalizing, regulating, and most importantly taxing online poker. They have buddies by the name of Caesar's and Wynn et al., who pay billions of dollars in lobbying, and they all need people to have money in their pocket and a good frame of mind about poker when those legal, regulated sites open up in the future.

If people come away from Full Tilt broke, with the money disappearing into limbo, that does not bode well for the comfort level of online poker players in the future in the US, and therefore does not bode well for the government. They're not just going to GIVE the money back, circumventing due process of law; but they're not going to stand in the way of a deal that facilitates the players being paid, either.

Political pressure is of course good. But if we believe your earlier comments ("the government is the mafia, they do what they want") then why would political pressure work either? Political pressure doesn't work on the mafia.

What is going on with non-USA players? I heard that we may or may not be getting paid back?

The situation with the shareholders could be more complicated than we think. Consider this example.

Shareholder A sells all his shares before the problems with DOJ and the payment processors started. He makes a healthy profit from the sale. He believes he is not in possession of stolen money and has no intention to return any of it to FTP.

Shareholder B buys all of A's shares and receives large sums in dividends the last few years but not enough to compensate for what he lost in the sale as his shares are now worthless. He is a net looser. He is angry at the directors of the company and certainly does not feel he has to return any of the dividend money to the players.

Where is the stolen money?

Do you have any reason to believe that the DoJ has actually frozen even a single account belonging to a non-Director shareholder/partner? I don't.

I have yet to hear about anybody other than the directors having assets frozen either.

Yes that's correct. Non-USA players will either get paid back or they won't. HTH

Morphy

MF Global is currently in United States Bankruptcy Court. FTP is not.

Your analogy is, thus, meaningless.