July 31 2012, Chad Holloway

Since the inception of Full Tilt Poker up until September of last year, Ian Imrich served as general counsel of the online poker site. On Nov. 2, 2011, Chris Ferguson retained Imrich as personal counsel. Ferguson was implicated on Sept. 21, 2011, when the U.S. Department of Justice amended its original civil complaint, alleging that Full Tilt Poker and board members Ferguson, Ray Bitar, Howard Lederer and Rafe Furst defrauded thousands of online poker players out of more than $300 million.

In the wake of PokerStars’ acquisition of Full Tilt Poker, PokerNews reached out to Imrich in the hopes of obtaining comment from Ferguson, and received the following reply via e-mail:

This settlement is great news for poker players worldwide, and particularly in the US. But Chris Ferguson is not in a position to comment at this time as he has not yet resolved his individual civil case with SDNY and the settlement discussions – while extremely positive and productive – must remain private and confidential at this time.

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July 31 2012, PokerNews Staff

After months of negotiations with the U.S. Department of Justice, PokerStars has completed the purchase of Full Tilt Poker.

According to diamondflushpoker.com, the U.S. Attorney’s office has approved a deal allowing Full Tilt Poker to forfeit all of its assets to PokerStars. In return, PokerStars will forfeit $547 million to the U.S. government over the next three years. Once the transfer of assets is finalized, PokerStars will make available for immediate cash withdrawal or play the account balances for all of FTP’s non-U.S. players within 90 days.

The total amount of the deal worth $731 million, of which $330 million will go towards the repayment of Full Tilt Poker’s players.

We’ll have more on this story as it develops. For news, updates, and more follow PokerNews on Twitter and Facebook.

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