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.
Last week, the troubled poker network Dynamic Gaming Systems (DGS) announced in a press release that it had reached an agreement for the ‘transfer of its network’ with Cintaly Holding Corporation, registered in the British Virgin Islands, but did not name any specific dates. It was stated in the announcement that BVI company’s executives were ‘excited by the opportunity to take over one of the finest poker software networks online’, but nothing was said about serious allegations being made against the Costa Rica-based DGS network by operators, affiliates and players.
It was however claimed in the release that Cintaly Holding Corporation ‘intended to honour all verified existing player balances and licensee agreements’, after getting ‘all remaining players and licensees back operational as fast as possible’.
By the information provided in the numerous reports of DGS members, the network has ceased payouts with many operators, which are looking for co-operation with the fast-growing networks Merge Poker and Dobrosoft’s Gold Chip. So, online poker site G2Gpoker.com, along with LuckyHog.net., announced that it has left DGS and joined Merge.
Sweden’s tax authority (Skatterverket) claims that online poker site Multipoker.com owes SEK40 million (about USD$6.38 million) in unpaid taxes; the reason is that, according to Skatteverket, Multipoker’s offices in the British Virgin Islands were only a front, but all of the gaming operations were unlawfully conducted in Sweden.
This was found in the course of ongoing investigation into online gaming launched by Skatteverket together with the National Economic Crimes Bureau and the Gaming Board. The investigators have already asked several major companies having interests in the Scandinavian country to provide information, and one of them was Multipoker.com. Being one of the first online poker webistes in Sweden, it had originally been owned and operated by British Virgin Islands-registered EPR Investments. In November 2005, the BVI company sold it for US$14.5 million to PartyGaming Plc, the largest London-listed online gaming company; two years later, in December 2007, this Gibraltar company confirmed the purchase of other gambling sites from BVI-based Empire Online Ltd.
The founders and main shareholders of EPR Investments (BVI) were arrested in May 2007, and a police investigation was launched into allegations of serious tax crimes. Knut Edhborg, tax auditor at Skatteverket, said that according to their investigations all of the business of BVI registered EPR Investments was operated from Sweden, and both the management and board of directors were situated there and not in BVI. Meanwhile, no revenues generated by Multipoker.com prior to its acquisition by PartyGaming were declared in Sweden.
Also, the authorities allege that the US$14.5 million paid for the business ended up with the owners of EPR Investments via bank accounts in Switzerland, again without being declared to the Swedish tax authorities.
Throughout the year, Sweden has been pressured by the EC to end their gambling monopoly. The Swedish government declined further expansion of Svenska Spel gaming monopoly, though has not ended it yet.
The Niobe Corinthian casino ship, which is owned by the BVI company Estrellas Limited and which arose so many controversies, is going to set sail from Bermuda, by the information provided by lawyer llewellyn Peniston, who acts on behalf of the owners of the vessel. Mr. Peniston, being an opponent of Bermuda’s anti-gambling laws, also said that legal loopholes have been found that will allow it to be used as a casino outside the territorial waters of the Island, - despite the recent prosecution of the ship’s captain and general manager.
Casino ship was opposed from the very beginning by Bermuda’s church lobby, which has voiced opposition to the ship in the past. When the first plans to operate from Bermuda appeared in 2004, the Social Action Committee of the AME Church sharply criticised it. Now, some days ago, Rev. Lorne Bean confirmed that the church stance remains unchanged.
During his evidence, the lawyer rejected to identify the individuals behind the BVI-registered Estrellas Limited that owns the ship. However, what he would only describe as “an agreement†was thrashed out between the company and Government regarding the duty the ship must pay each time it arrives back in Bermuda.