Bernard Tapie Signs Deal with DOJ to Acquire Full Tilt Poker

Players holding out hope that their money on Full Tilt Poker would be returned to them sooner rather than later got some great news on Thursday. CNNMoney.com first broke the story that Groupe Bernard Tapie had signed a deal to purchase the assets of Full Tilt Poker for $80 million US.

As part of the deal Full Tilt Poker agreed to surrender its assets to the Department of Justice. The DOJ was then able to sell those assets to GBT. American players will be paid back by the Department of Justice while GBT assumes all debts for players outside the United States. Estimates put the the amount owed at $390 million with $150 million being owed to U.S. players.

The deal still needs approval of 2/3 of Full Tilt Poker shareholders.

The deal between GBT and the DOJ is expected to be officially announced by Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, on Friday. The story which ran on CNNMoney and Yahoo! Finance was done so ahead of an embargo which should have seen the story made public Friday morning at 6:45 ET.

According to CNN Money, “the government plans to dismiss the civil forfeiture proceedings. This will have no impact on individual proceedings, but it removes a potential liability for shareholders, as it removes all pending proceeding against Full Tilt”. In August, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and Rafe Furst were added to the forfeiture and civil money laundering complaint brought by Bharara’s office that originally only named Ray Bitar. All four are members of the board of directors for Full Tilt Poker.