The 26-page “Determination Report”, posted by AGCC today along with their press release, listed 8 “Grounds” for why Full Tilt Poker was not deemed fit to continue conducting an internet gambling site.
Ponzi or no Ponzi, FTP, in AGCC’s evaluation, has (had) *issues*.
Ground 1: Subsidiaries Vantage Limited, Filco Limited, Oxalic Limited, and Orinic Limited with “regard to eGambling licensee’s current financial position and financial background, are no longer a fit and proper person to hold an eGambling licence.”
Ground 2: Same as Ground 1 but for Koylma Corporation as an associate of Vantage Limited, Filco Limited, Oxalic Limited, and Orinic Limited.
Ground 3: Same as Ground 1 but for Pocket Kings as an associate of Vantage Limited, Filco Limited, Oxalic Limited, and Orinic Limited.
Ground 4: The subsidiaries “failed to notify the Commission in writing within 48 hours of serious incidents negatively affecting the operations of the eGambling licensee.” These were listed as unreported incidents:
- $331 million was seized between 6/28/2007 and 6/20/2011 by the US DOJ, such that “all such frozen funds were represented and treated as cash in the accounts of Vantage Limited.”
- “At the 17th June 2011, Filco Limited had approximately $15 million US Dollars unavailable as they were the subject of an internal bank compliance review.”
Ground 5: With regards to the non-payment of requested player withdrawals: “you [FTP] have failed to repay, at the request of registered customers, funds standing to the credit of that customer as directed by the customer.”
Ground 6: In addressing the question of FTP’s operating balance: FTP “operated otherwise than in accordance with your approved internal control system namely a failure to ensure sufficient funds are held in the company’s account to cover all balances held by the Company on behalf of its customers” and had promised and failed to ensure that “this account [was] not used as a security for any other operational liability”.
Ground 7: Lists the complaint that FTP allowed incomplete deposits as part of a bankroll: Vantage Limited “by virtue of permitting customers to effect gambling transactions when you [FTP] were not in possession of the money deposited by those customers who had utilised the ACH electronic bank transfer facility and you were aware that no payment processor had been able to collect the funds.”
Ground 8: “You [FTP] submitted reports that failed to detail the said financial position in that they wrongly asserted compliance with the required financial ratios.”
FTP representatives Craig Ferguson, Tony Coles, and Nick Nocton were present on 9/19/2011 and 9/20/2011 at the pre-hearing applications. The doc states: “FTP elected not to be present at the regulatory hearing and its legal representatives were therefore instructed not to be present at the regulatory hearing.”
Why would FTP decide not to be present at the regulatory hearing? Who would have need to have attended if they had? Were they deterred from appearing by the DOJ addition of the FTP Board of Directors to the US civil suit against the company announced on 9/20/2011?
AGCC notified FTP on 9/26/2011 that they decided to revoke their license. “FTP’s representatives were present at the regulatory hearing but elected to offer no explanation or comment” despite being “given the opportunity by the Commissioners on the 27th September 2011, pursuant to regulation 49(3) of the Regulations, to offer any explanation and make any such other comment as FTP wished.”
To me, the most intriguing bit of *new* info in this document was that FTP not only did not attend the actual regulatory hearing, but offered no comment after the license was revoked.
