DoJ to appoint FTP claims administrator by January
Department publishes victim update saying it expects work on the reimbursement of American players to begin early next year.
The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) anticipates selecting a claims administrator to handle the repayment of Full Tilt Poker’s (FTP) American players in January of next year.
Its announcement comes three months after opening the application process for the role, which would assist with the distribution of an estimated US$330m in player funds to players whose accounts were made inaccessible upon the shutdown of FTP’s US operations in April 2011.
The DoJ states that the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is currently “evaluating applicants” and that it expects the appointed party to begin work on the reimbursement of players through the remission process from the start of 2013.
It had earlier stated that $159m would be immediately available for distribution – this figure is less than the $184m made accessible to players from the rest of the world upon Full Tilt’s relaunch in selected markets earlier this month.
Under the terms of PokerStars $731m settlement and acquisition agreement for FTP’s assets in July, the Isle of Man licensee committed to “Make available for immediate cash withdrawal or play the account balances for all of Full Tilt Poker’s non-U.S. players” within 90 days.
The settlement also saw the DoJ agree “All of Full Tilt Poker’s U.S. players will have an opportunity to request that they be compensated…for their losses.”
Last week saw French regulator ARJEL confirm that more than three quarters of fulltiltpoker.fr players had seen their FTP balances transferred to their PokerStars account, as the operator’s new owner will not be pursuing a French licence for the site. It added that “The process is expected to continue, [and] players have the option of requesting a refund of their assets at any time.”