Doesn't this rather assume that when FTP were negotiating with the DoJ they had the best interest of players at the heart of the deal? Personally, given everything we've learned since BF, I'd be more inclined to believe they just want to keep out of jail - and screw everyone else.

Per Jeff Ifrah, it was Tapie's idea for him to reach a deal with the DOJ first before FTP negotiated anything with the DOJ.

still think its a great business decision to buy FTP. fwiw.

I do know I wont see my money till maybe another year. hopefully PS can open its doors to us players by summer of 12 if everything goes well in congress.

I actually think we are more likley to see FTP2 operating in the US than Stars. FTP2 will arguably be new actors whose past gives no reason to deny them a license, while Stars will likey be owned by people convicted of (or awaiting trial on) violations of US gambling and related laws.

Does the 2/3 FTP shareholder vote require 2/3 of the 22 people that own shares in the company? Meaning 15 have to vote in favour for the deal to pass. Or the shareholders that have a combined 2/3 equity?

Equity

One of the best questions i've seen asked in this thread.

I think its a positive that it is 2/3's Equity, and not 2/3's shareholders, not going to go into the specifics of why I think the Equity-vote is better.

Greater minds than my own, do you agree an Equity-vote is better than a # of shareholders-vote?

It´s actually one of the most stupid questions asked ITT - no insult intended.

If everyone were as informed as you and I, and others who visit this thread daily and multiple times at that,

then yes, its a stupid question.


And a student asking a teacher "what is 2+2?" might sound like a stupid question to an observer who is more learned,

but everyone learns at a different pace, and certainly the information which is "obvious" and "LDO" to us, is not so obvious or well known by others.

As such (and maybe I should have specified), this is a great question by a poster interested in the procedures going on and the vote that needs to be taken, and i'm sure there are more people out there who did not know the answer and wondered the same thing but did not ask.


As a matter of fact, I was already aware it was an equity-vote, as opposed to % of share holders-vote, and 2+2 = 4. ;-)

Also, no insult taken. I understand your perspective.

Think its a given that its by equity since control of companies is always based on equity. Owning 100 shares of a company wouldnt give you the same voting rights as someone who owns 100,000 shares.

I keep writing posts for this thread and deleting them because I know they're just going to disappear into the morass and reading this thread gives me a ****ing headache anyway. But here goes...

The DOJ has three concerns, the law, politics, and the money they're going to keep at the end of the day. Not necessarily in that order. There won't be a press conference like in maryland, but there will be a dinner in the senior executive dining room of a NY or DC federal building, and they'll have a big-ass check on an easel or on the screen.

note all figures are IIRC, please correct me if you'd like to.

So let's look at those 3 things, starting with the law. IANAL and I know there are several in this thread trying to help. One of the most notable to me is mpeth, who keeps trying to tell everyone, "ummm, these are lawyers, and they write what they do in the way that they do for a reason, and looking at the language they're using, I wouldn't assume anything. Just sayin'." IMO this is proven by the fact that both sides of the debate can parse the language and take strong positions to their liking, and we can't resolve the debate. The language being used is WIDE-open guys. I keep reading phrases like "there's no way they'd do that" and "they have to do this"... each party involved is going to look out for its own interests, period, and they don't necessarily align with yours.

There are three concerns wrt the law imo, precedent, jurisdiction, and punishing those who broke the law. WRT past precedent, I believe Party Poker paid $300M to settle claims in 2006. I don't remember whether they secured the right to re-enter the US market as part of their claim, but that's obviously important. So the DOJ isn't going want to settle with Poker Stars and FTP for less than $300M. Now, the market has changed, both due to the economy and more than a few externalities, but that's the starting point. And in the case of FTP, based on what we know, that's no longer possible -- they don't have $300M.

With regard to future precedent, while it may not matter much since legalization seems to be on the horizon, whatever deal the DOJ makes with FTP will absolutely affect the deal it makes with Poker Stars. And PS can afford the aforementioned $300M, so the DOJ is going to want to collect as close to that amount as they can. Hell, they'll probably collect more from PS anyway, especially if they exercise their leverage wrt to re-entering the US market. But if they settle with FTP for peanuts, they can't very well drop the hammer on PS. AFAIK judges tend to frown on that sort of thing, and besides, the DOJ is looking to settle at the end of the day, not litigate and re-litigate on appeal.

The other two issues, jurisdiction and punishment, are intertwined. We have no idea what's going on with PS. We do know they have had bank accounts seized. FTP has already had its bank accts and IP seized, and now that IP (along with the physical property and the offices in Ireland?) has been sold, and some of the bank accts have been released. We also know that FTP2 has been released of all charges associated with the DOJ's case. Before these threads degenerated into a cluster****, people were talking about leverage and value and how to exercise leverage to acquire value as defined by the party exercising that leverage. IMO the DOJ wouldn't have released $40M in bank accts if they could have established a claim to them. They're not going to get the $300M they'd like to get from FTP -- so the $40M matters. In exchange for releasing that money, they've washed their hands of the ROW, over whom they don't have jurisdiction anyway, something I'm guessing the Tapie group's lawyers illustrated for them.

[speculation] I think that as far as the ROW, it's gonna be up to your justice departments to establish your claim on FTP2. And I'm not sure how that works since they didn't charge them with a crime in the first place. So it may be up to your personal lawyers. But I think in the end ROW licensing and enforcement bodies will require Tapie to pay you. In exchange for taking responsibility for the fallout from the DOJ's activities and assuming your risk in dealing with American "justice," he'll be allowed to do so over time. [/speculation]

As for the US case, the DOJ now has $80M from FTP. Originally we thought that there were ~$120M in accounts, $40M of which was imaginary, but I thought I read recently that maybe as much as $160M was frozen. If that last number is possible, I'd have to assume it includes the $40M that was just released. (As I'm writing it occurs to me this may not be a coincidence.) So we're back to $120M, only $80M of which is really there -- meaning that the DOJ has just more than half of the amount they'd like to collect from FTP and Poker Stars. Don't forget, the DOJ is going to get paid for all their time and expenses and maybe even the opportunity cost of pursuing this case, and then they're going to take the money that'll be on the giant-ass check. Subtract those two figures from $160M and you have what's left to pay American players, who are out $150M. Now, if the DOJ pursues all the phantom deposits, it will help. But that's where they run into American jurisdictional issues -- do they really have the ability to compel a claim for something they're trying to define as illegal? I don't know.

They might just take as much as they can so that they can collect the same from PS. Say, $200M. Meaning as of right now they're $40M in the hole (ignoring the phantom $40M), money they're going to have to collect in fines from the principals/named defendants/I don't know where (AKA the same people we may end up trying to get paid by). This is where politics comes into play. Like mpeth pointed out a couple days ago, if the DOJ keeps less in order to pay us, that's essentially a TAXPAYER-FUNDED BAILOUT of online poker players. Do you really think you're going to read that headline in an election year? Or are you going to read how they collected $150M from FTP and $250M from PS, and paid us back x% of the money we were owed? Hopefully my numbers are all wrong, but I think I've got the gist of it. From my perspective, things don't look that good yet.

What's their sample size? They say "two decades" but that could be like, 3 cases, wherein all the applicants were as guilty as the fraudulators, for all we know.

Party Poker settled for $105M, and they still owe two $15M payments, the CEO was personally fined $300M, the DOJ won't be setting a precedent for PS which is a going concern based on how much they sell an insolvent company's (FTP) assets.

That's like saying that if they didn't fine a dead guy they set a precedent not to fine me for the same offense, but if PS likes the deal FTP got I'm sure the DOJ could find someone to buy their assets for $40M if they want to forfeit everything including bank accounts.

While politically it might look somewhat bad to do 'bailout' for a poker company, the other option of having every ROW government pissed off for the sake of a dinner with a giant check would look worse.

All hail tapie

Exactly, in most cases where remission is granted the victims have no need to hire a lawyer. Mr. Webb hopefully hired this guy on contingency, so the lawyer won't get paid if remission becomes the remedy.

Good point, but "two decades of forfeiture practice" might seem to imply more than 3 cases.
Webb's lawyer is Steven L. Kessler. whose website is www.kessleronforfeiture.com[/URL"]www.kessleronforfeiture.com"]www.kessleronforfeiture.com[/URL]

The following is an excerpt from Kessler's entry on Martindales's profile on Martindales[/URL]:
A review of Kessler's published notable cases (a small number of cases) show none where a petition was even made, let alone granted. Most cases seem to centre on whether a particular property is subject to forfeiture. However, I did not find any comprehensive listing of cases, so we don't know how often he was involved in a case where a petition was made.

good post

I hope the fact that GBT has more less stuck to every timeline they have set so far is a good sign for the future FTP.

Good luck to us all over the next few months. I can imagine that there will be a ton of issues to clean up and certain things will remain unresolved.

Thanks to everyone in this thread that's spent so much time exploring the possibilities.

I think I will be checking 2p2 less and S:P more as this turns more official. Thank you Noah and Diamond. Keep up the good work and do what you can to maintain the integrity you've had through this thing. I'm sure we're at the beginning of a huge wave of internet gaming in this country, and I'm sure you all will have the opportunity to do whatever you want in this business.

gl

Noah, DF, anybody,

is there a new timeline from GBT when the old (2/3) shareholders from FTP1 should have agreed upon the necessary forfeiture of FTP1´s seized assets?

With Phil Ivey being in Macau, is it a realistic possibility that the shareholders have already voted but that is just not news yet?

Good question - shouldn´t there be some well informed "poker reporters" in MAcaua trying to ask Ivey this very same question???

My best educated guess at this point is that this could happen within a couple of weeks. Everything must be reduced to writing first, including all due diligence. Not a 5 minute process obv.
Please do not accept this as some solid time frame, it is strictly my take on what may be likely.
When more info becomes available, we will have a better idea.

Anyone able to access this? http://www.egrmagazine.com/news/ifra..._submit_claims

Doubt anyone would have subscription. Easier to ask Jeff himself.

2nd line: Full Tilt lawyer confirms details of Groupe Bernard Tapie takeover which he hopes will be completed soon.

Don´t we all?