Home / Poker News July 2012 / The Poker Grapevine – PokerStars Swings into Action
The Poker Grapevine – PokerStars Swings into Action
Posted by: Randy Williams - Thu, 2012-07-12 11:09
Due to the fact that they have more or less promptly repaid their US customers in the wake of the Black Friday indictments and that they haven’t really been involved in any kind of legal scandals since, people tend to forget the fact that PokerStars were tossed into just as deep legal waters as Full Tilt Poker and the other accused entities on Black Friday. Despite keeping calm and tending to their business,
PokerStars have had their lawyers working overtime trying to find a counter to the Black Friday DoJ onslaught. What they came up with is a motion which they filed the other day, trying to have charges brought against various PokerStars subsidiaries last September dismissed. The legal ground on which the motion stands may in fact be a rather solid one as it aims to exploit various faults in the above said civil complaints.
According to the motion, the complaints are based on charges so vague that they do not allow PokerStars to properly marshal their legal defense.
The complaints also fail to formulate a theory rooted in legally viable grounds, regarding the way(s) in which PokerStars violated the Illegal Gambling Business Act and committed money laundering and bank fraud.
Last but not least, the US government has admitted that PokerStars had operated legally all over the world and therefore in the US too, yet it aims to seize all PokerStars assets, without making any kind of an effort to separate assets acquired legally and those acquired in an allegedly illegal manner.
Whether or not the filing of the motion will affect the ongoing negotiations aimed at the takeover of Full Tilt Poker remains to be seen. If the motion gains a favorable resolution though, it may actually end up aiding the said process.
Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and Rafe Furst, the Full Tilt board members also included in the Black Friday documents, have also filed motions to have charges against them dismissed.
