Tapie - Full Tilt takeover deal has failed
Statement from French consortium cites "unresolvable" legal complications and failure to agree on player repayment plan.
Groupe Bernard Tapie has announced that its proposed deal to acquire the assets of Full Tilt Poker has “failed”, eGaming Review can confirm.
A statement from the consortium explains that the reasons for the failure are twofold, citing the inability to agree a repayment plan for Rest-of-World players plus legal complications which “proved unresolvable”.
The statement continues: “We understand from press reports that the DoJ may have entered into an agreement with PokerStars pursuant to which PokerStars will acquire the FTP assets.
“If accurate, we can only assume that PokerStars determined that it was willing to accept these legal and financial risks in order to resolve its own legal situation with DOJ,” added the group.
Under the terms of the repayment plan proposed by GBT, some 94.9% of players would have been paid out “on day 1″, but the group has claimed that an “11th hour” demand saw the DoJ “[Ultimately insist] on full repayment with right of withdrawal within 90 days for all players” a surprise demand”¦after months of good-faith negotiations by GBT.”
It notes that “All of the key assets of the FTP companies reside outside of the United States,” suggesting: “A non-US court well might regard the purported forfeiture as a “fraudulent transaction” and declare it invalid or deem the acquirer of the assets responsible for all of those creditor obligations.
“Given the $80m purchase price, and the substantial amount of cash needed to relaunch FTP, those issues ultimately proved too substantial to overcome,” GBT explained.
Speaking about the PokerStars rumours suggesting it could become the new owners of FTP, which originated on poker forum Two Plus Two this morning, GBT has said: “If a PokerStars acquisition of FTP means that all FTP players will be fully repaid immediately, we are very happy for the players, as their final and full repayment has always been our priority.
“We only regret that such a deal would signal further consolidation of a poker market already dominated by a single player – an outcome that may raise antitrust concerns and that, in the long run, is probably not good for players and for the whole online poker industry,” the group added.