Tomorrow the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) will be meeting with the US Department of Justice to discuss the issues surrounding the reimbursement of US players’ account balances from Full Tilt. The PPA originally offered to assist the DOJ with the remission process in August.
Executive Director John Pappas and internet law expert Marc Zwillinger will be representing the PPA at the meeting. Zwillinger, a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, is a former member of the DOJ and has also provided services to the PPA.
The DOJ has yet to announce how it will calculate the amounts it will return to players. Players are also concerned about what adjustments will be made for uncollected deposits, bounced checks and other funds lost in the payment processing chain.
Some other topics expected to be discussed include the conversion of non-monetary items such as Full Tilt Points and Iron Man Medals, a timeline for when players can expect to be reimbursed and the overall lack of communication by the DOJ thus far.
PPA Board member and Litigation Support Director Patrick Fleming indicated that one of the ways the PPA intends to represent players’ interests is by making the DOJ aware of ways to make the remission process “simple and easy for players to complete.”
Players in the US can currently log in to Full Tilt Poker and request a full transaction history via the poker client. However, there is no indication that the balances noted in the transaction history will reflect the amount set to be returned by the DOJ.
As part of the deal struck when PokerStars agreed to purchase the assets of Full Tilt Poker, the DOJ will reimburse “victims” in the US from approximately $159m of forfeited funds.
The closing date for applications to be appointed as the claims administrator was August 31 but no official announcement has been released identifying the firm that will process the claims.
