Groupe Barnard Tapie Signs Deal To Acquire Full Tilt Poker

In the month of November this year, the news broke that Groupe Barnard Tapie signed a deal to acquire Full Tilt Poker for an amount of $80 million. But, the procedure of acquiring is still in process and the agreement needs to be approved by at least two-thirds of the FTP shareholders. If everything goes well, then GBT will soon acquire the casino.

The deal between GBT and FTP also states that the company acquiring the casino will also be responsible for paying back the money of the players outside the United States, whereas the United States Department of Justice will be paying back to the players in the US. The amount that needs to be paid back to the US players is $150 million approximately.

The United States Department of Justice has managed the deal making sure that FTP forfeits its assets to the US Government, which, in turn, will be sold to the French Investment Firm. The deal can be seen as a respite for FTP players who were battling to receive their money back from the gambling site.

An email from Ray Bitar, the chief executive of the online poker casino Full Tilt Poker, announced the agreement of the United States Department of Justice and Groupe Barnard Tapie regarding the acquisition of the casino. He confirmed that GTB would assume all the responsibilities of FTP toward the casino players outside the country, whereas the Department of Justice would take care of the repayments and refunds within the United States.

He further said that the time frame for the repayment was yet to be decided and the procedures for applying and settlement for refunds would also be introduced soon. Once the details of the acquisition are finalized, GTB would make a deal to FTP shareholders. Once they agree, the rest of the procedures will be discussed soon.

The email was confirmed by numerous independent sources. Moreover, Benham Dayanim, counsel for GBT, said while confirming the deal, “The next step is to obtain an agreement from Full Tilt Companies. I anticipate it will happen. It allows for players to be repaid and resolves the FTP forfeiture action by the Government.”

Jeff Ifrah, an attorney for Full Tilt Poker, spoke with PokerNews. He said, “There is a signed agreement between the government and Tapie that dictates what the terms will be for the sale of the assets, but the government doesn’t have the assets yet, so they still need to obtain them. It’s not clear what has to happen for the government to obtain those assets.”

He further said, “In a lot of ways, the agreement is historic, so obviously there is going to remain a lot of questions how players are going to submit a request, when they will get the money back, how much money will be available, will they get money for points, will they get money for this? There is a ton of questions.”

Whatever it is, but it brings some respite to the players who have their money entangled with the casino. By early 2012, they will get the answers to all these questions. For now, they can just hope for everything settling fast.