Cardroom International has finally filed a claim against the poker software of Full Tilt. The actual case was filed last August 20, 2012 in the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles County. This was also the same venue where Cardroom filed a suit claiming some wrong doings by Full Tilt Poker and Poker Stars. Poker Stars has also been added to the law suit recently.
Cardroom.com states in the law suit that because of the RICO laws (Civil Racketeering Influenced and Corruption Organization Act) both companies had a bad effect on Cardroom’s business by offering directly clients in the United States online poker to the tune of $30 Million.
Cardroom is running right after the directors of both companies along with their associated companies in the law suit. The ultimate prize in this case would be the overall legal rights to FTP software, which Cardroom claims that it actually owns.
It appears that Chris Ferguson was a primary investor in the software program developed among other traders in his posy (also known as Jesus Coalition), which created the program for Full Tilt under the company BH Developments. However, Cardroom is saying that it possessed the legal rights to the software program with an offer they hit back in 2006 after a bankruptcy filing.
During those times an associate of Cardroom International allegedly obtained the application rights previously owned by BH Development, re-launching Cardroom.com in 2008.
It is vital for us to note that this case is currently on-going and there is no assurance that Cardroom will win or what may happen if Cardroom makes their case. The original law suit was filed last September 30, 2011. Cardroom submitted a reply to the Department of Justice’s efforts to hit their case on August 20, 2012.
It seems like this case may go on for some time with “He Said – She Said” justifications that are filled with allegations and complex copyright legalities. It is going to be intriguing to see how all of this winds up especially now with Poker Stars being included. All we have to do right now is wait and see.
