New Jersey Licensing Requirements Force Out DeLeons bwin.party

[haleylh]

This was always going to happen; as I mentioned in a piece at FlushDraw, the surprise was that it took so long. Regulators anywhere in the US could not let bwin.party (PartyGaming) back in as long as Ruth Parasol DeLeon and Russell DeLeon owned chunks.

Meat of press release:

Substantial Shareholders' Divestiture Arrangements Pursuant To New Jersey Licence Application

Summary
On 29 July 2013, bwin.party applied to the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement ('DGE') for a Casino Service Industry Enterprise Licence (the 'Licence'). As part of the application process, certain substantial shareholders of bwin.party are required to submit individual Licence applications to the DGE or otherwise dispose of their shareholdings. As a result, certain substantial shareholders of bwin.party have elected, subject to the conditions summarised below, to place their bwin.party shares into divestiture trusts, through which their shares will be divested over a period of up to 36 months in one or more transactions at times to be determined.

Divestiture Arrangements
Emerald Bay Limited ('Emerald'), wholly-owned by Ruth Parasol DeLeon, and Stinson Ridge Limited ('Stinson'), wholly-owned by James Russell DeLeon (together, the 'Substantial Shareholders') have elected, pursuant to a divorce settlement and for reasons of privacy, to enter into a divestiture agreement with bwin.party and the DGE (the 'Divestiture Agreement'), rather than submit individual Licence applications. Emerald currently owns 58,498,667 (7.16%) bwin.party shares and Stinson currently owns 58,498,666 (7.16%) bwin.party shares. Under the terms of the Divestiture Agreement, the Substantial Shareholders have respectively agreed, subject to the conditions described below, to transfer their entire holding of bwin.party shares into separate trusts, and such bwin.party shares will thereafter be divested by the trustees of their respective trusts, working together, in one or more transactions.

Conditions
Under the New Jersey online casino licensing regulations, bwin.party will be required to obtain a transactional waiver from the DGE in order to participate in online gaming from the date the New Jersey online gaming market opens. Under the terms of the Divestiture Agreement, as soon as bwin.party is granted a transactional waiver by the DGE in respect of its Licence application, the Substantial Shareholders have agreed to place the entirety of their then current holdings of bwin.party shares into trust (the Emerald Trust in respect of Emerald and the Stinson Trust in respect of Stinson) (together the 'Trusts'). The main terms of the Divestiture Agreement take effect on the date that the New Jersey online gaming market opens. The divestiture arrangements are subject to bwin.party receiving and maintaining the Licence.

Divestiture Period and Key Terms
Under the terms of the Divestiture Agreement, the Substantial Shareholders will be entitled to direct the independent trustees of their Trusts (the 'Trustees') to divest their respective bwin.party shares, on or off-market, to one or more transferees, in one transaction or a series of transactions, over the 24 month period commencing on the date that the first online wagers are allowed to be taken in New Jersey under the new regulations.

In the event the Trusts have not disposed of all the bwin.party shares by the end of the above 24 month period, the Company will take control of the divestiture process and dispose of any remaining bwin.party shares in accordance with the disposal provisions in the articles of association over a 12 month period.

The Trustees of the Emerald Trust and the Stinson Trust have agreed to work together with a view to divesting the shares held by each Trust in an orderly manner, with the Trustee of the Emerald Trust taking the lead in coordinating the timing and process of the divestiture.

(Complete press release here)

[Dan Druff]

I bolded the most important parts, so people who don't want to read this legal-language press release can quickly understand.

Why don't you think they wanted Ruth Parasol in the legalized market in New Jersey? Is it because she ran Party for so many years illegally?

[Sanlmar]

I bolded the most important parts, so people who don't want to read this legal-language press release can quickly understand.

Why don't you think they wanted Ruth Parasol in the legalized market in New Jersey? Is it because she ran Party for so many years illegally?

Ruth Parasol was a great story, of course.

[garrett]

I bolded the most important parts, so people who don't want to read this legal-language press release can quickly understand.

Why don't you think they wanted Ruth Parasol in the legalized market in New Jersey? Is it because she ran Party for so many years illegally?

Ruth Parasol was a great story, of course.

Cool story, just read the wiki. I especially like the adult phone sex services entrepreneur element.


lol thumbs up, lady's obv ahead of her time...

[haleylh]

I bolded the most important parts, so people who don't want to read this legal-language press release can quickly understand.

Why don't you think they wanted Ruth Parasol in the legalized market in New Jersey? Is it because she ran Party for so many years illegally?

I heard a rumor that the DOJ approached her and then-hubby Russell about negotiating settlement's similar to Dikshit's, but they said no way and stayed outside the US -- they are originally Californians who fled the US when Party took off. So it doesn't look good for bwin.party with all their other skeletons (blackjack and PartyMarkets pre-UIGEA, etc.) that two of their important founding shareholders are US citizens who have given the US the finger.