The Diamond Flush Poker website has published an exclusive report of a leaked email from Laurent Tapie, the executive director of the Bernard Tapie Group and the key man who is spearheading the Full Tilt deal, to 16 “key” employees of Pocket Kings.
Through the email Tapie has made a dramatic proposal. He has offered all employees the chance to maintain their current salary but with a condition of working for a new poker site under the Game Cubed company Tapie which has recently been registered in Ireland.
Tapie has also made the primary condition mandatory for all to accept the offer:
I will do this only if I can attract ALL OF the Pocket Kings KEY STAFF to join me. With your help and know-how, we will launch a new website that will be best of breed in 6-7 months.
I know that any such step requires a leap of faith, so here is my offer: as of May 1, I will hire the entire Pocket Kings key staff – every single one of you – at your current salaries and with your accumulated benefits intact. I also will include stock options in the new company, so that we all will share in what I believe to be the exciting upside this opportunity represents.
Tapie added further, “The staff would write entirely new software and launch a new brand with an offer to former Full Tilt ROW players to recover their lost balances if they join the site.”
However, it has not been confirmed if any employee has accepted the offer.
The email was reportedly leaked out just hours before Tapie released the official statement where he made his declaration that the company was pulling out of the Full Tilt deal. Tapie himself seems doubtful and has called off the Full Tilt deal.
Some reliable sources also reveal that the Full Tilt Poker deal did not happen as expected because the Tapie Group couldn’t reach an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice on the matter of a timeline for paying back ROW players.
Tapie wrote in his email: the DOJ ultimately refused to accept the Tapie Group’s proposal for repayment of the players on April 14, 2012, because it wanted GBT to pay back 100% of the $184 million owed to ROW players in 90 days. Since the Bernard Tapie Group /Full Tilt deal fell through, former competitor PokerStars has been rumored to be in negotiations with the DOJ to buy the floundering Full Tilt Poker for $750 million.
