The Australian internet tycoon Daniel Tzvetkoff has been filed a $52 million legal action by an online gambling firm Kolyma Corporation AVV. The action was lodged in the Supreme Court of Brisbane on May 25, 2009.
Mr. Tzvetkoff and his partner Sam Sciacca have built a business empire, based on very effective online billing, payments and fraud-detection system, and estimated at US$120 million. Now his and his partner’s firm Intabill Inc, registered in the British Virgin Islands, is being sued for payments which, as the plaintiff claims, were not passed on.
The Aruba-based Kolyma corporation, which operates one of the most popular and lucrative online gambling sites, was one of the major clients of the BVI-domiciled company, headquartered in Milton. Kolyma is seeking Intabill to pay an alleged debt of $US43 million plus interest, which as it claims has been increasing at $US13,532 a day since the day of filing the lawsuit. Beside the BVI-registered Intabill, the corporation named as defendant the Australian-registered holding company BT Projects. The lawsuit also targets Mr Tzvetkoff and Mr Sciacca individually, saying they gave a guarantee to pay Kolyma money that were claimed to be owned. By words of Mr Tzvetkoff, the partners would defend the lawsuit.
Intabill had more than 5000 customers in 70 countries; about half of its revenue came from business linked to online gambling operations, with fees from just one operator reaching more than $150,000 per day. In April, because of bad market conditions and increased loan funding costs, the BVI company laid off 96 employees. Also, in May Intabill withdrew a multimillion-dollar sponsorship of the Team IntaRacing V8 Supercar team, announced some months earlier.