Full Tilt Pays License Fees and Lays Off US Employees

A bevy of Full Tilt information has come to light in the past week.  The first bit of news came late last week from the Alderney Gambling Control Commission when they revealed that Full Tilt Poker has indeed paid them the overdue license fees reportedly owed them.  The amount equated to approximately £250,000.

Full Tilt's website remains suspended until at least Sept. 15th.

In a statement released on AGCC’s website, they stated, “On the 26th July 2011, the AGCC held a public hearing to consider allegations arising from the investigation. At the hearing the Commissioners of the AGCC, acting as a tribunal, decided to adjourn the hearing to a date no later than 15th September, as they felt that this was in the best interest of the players using FTP’s services.”

“The recent payment of overdue license fees by FTP is also in players’ best interests since it allows commercial negotiations to take place that might result in a successful refinancing deal.”

On Sunday, Wicked Chops Poker reported that some of Full Tilt’s U.S. based employees have been terminated.  It appears that Full Tilt has agreed to pay these employee’s for services rendered through August.  Of course, the report did not say how long they will have to wait for said payment.

Also, it appears that rumors of Ray Bitar’s demise at the Full Tilt are also false.  According to Wicked Chops, Howard Lederer may have been directly responsible for blocking Bitar’s termination.  The rumor was originally reported on WCP but never confirmed.

Finally, there has been no progress reported on the negotiations with “European investors.”  The AGCC gave Full Tilt extra time to work on raising capital to pay back US players, but nothing has been reported for quite some time.

In this author’s opinion, the payment of the license fees to the AGCC was a good investment for the struggling company.  Chances are that they can now get their license back and any potential negotiations should take not of this important fact.

On the note of negotiations, the longer this drags out, the more dire things look regarding Full Tilt pulling off a deal.  While I think it is entirely possible, if this drags out past the September 15th date set by the AGCC, things could get messy.

Stay tuned as we will continue to update you on this story as it develops.

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