Update: New Talks about Full Tilt Poker

New statements, 'exclusives' and rumors This week has been full of 'informal' statements on Full Tilt Poker, including 'exclusives', executive apologies and ad hoc lawyer comments trying to clarify the situation within the company. But have they managed to clarify it or further cloud it? One of the reports that arrived was the one that three unnamed and separate sources had issued a 'reliable' info that an unnamed UK private equity company is waiting to see whether the Groupe Bernard Tapie acquisition will fail, so it can snap up Full Tilt for around $30 to $35 million. Apparently, this unknown and apparently unlisted potential buyer is only interested in the Full Tilt Poker software and has no operator ambitions; and if such a deal goes through, the private equity company reportedly plans to deposit the purchase price in an independent account under the control of the Full Tilt administrators. The next one in the line of statements is a long anticipated one – by FTP leader Ray Bitar, who finally made his first statement since Black Friday. On the occasion, he apologized for the mess, assured the public that he is working hard to fix things, and explained his silence. It appears that an experienced industry professional, Robbie Davies, was outraged by such a statement by Bitar, as he opined: "Waiting this long to drop a well-crafted PR statement, which tells affected customers nothing, is just short of worthless. If this is simply the start of a PR campaign. Fine. I get it. But it is still not sincere. Too much damage has been done. The sincere thing to do is to respect your customers. Explain the mechanics of working toward refunds with a method that reverberates with each affected individual. Couple that with an honest strategy for a commercially viable future, and the damaged company could be getting somewhere. "How could this happen to begin with? How can this be overlooked and how can anyone put faith in this leadership to get it back on track? To run a successful business one has to be aware of the external and internal situation around them at all times. This includes getting hubris in check. Claiming "business as usual" and taking deposits after Black Friday was not responsible. Where is an apology for that?" Finally, the ever-present Groupe Bernard Tapie lawyer, Behnam Dayanim, issued yet another statement regarding the takeover, in which he said GBT is still 'cautiously optimistic' that the Full Tilt deal can be finalized by the end of March, but that there are still some obstacles to clear in this acquisition, such as legal consideration regarding the DoJ and both Full Tilt and the individuals behind the company, jurisdictional differences and the money owed by poker professionals associated with it. In terms of the latter, he said: “It's still an issue in that those debts have not been resolved. We're continuing to work on that. There are no new names to add to that list but we're also not taking off any names from that list.” And in regards to the Bitar statement, he seemed unmoved, saying: “I don't see it as harmful in any way and I don't see it impacting the deal in any way.”