The International Poker Network (commonly known as Boss Media) is bracing for major litigation.
A lawsuit initiated by PokerTrillion.com, a former skin of the IPN, has been given the go-ahead for trial following a preliminary judgment leveled by the First Hall Civil Court of Malta. The judgment was rendered on August 18th and establishes two penalties against IPN in addition to opening the door to trial: IPN has been given until September 18th, 2008 to cease all commercial activities occurring on Maltese lands as well as to freeze €20,000,000 in assets in preparation of possible monetary damages to be awarded to PokerTrillion.com.
PokerTrillion CEO, Andy Pyrah has been made eager for further actions against IPN by the court’s decision:
Today’s decision will in effect bring down Boss Media’s operation in their licensed jurisdiction of Malta on September 18 and any partner still on the Boss Poker Network (IPN) at this stage will see their service closed down too…
This in turn means that there is now a €20,000,000 freezing order on all Boss Media assets within this jurisdiction, and in accordance with European law we will be applying for this to be executed all over Europe.
For its part, IPN is striking back against PokerTrillion in the face of stiff fiscal penalties as well as an impending stoppage of commercial server activity in the form of a written company statement:
PokerTrillion is a former customer of Boss Media who was terminated because of rake back violations… They have since repeatedly tried to disrupt the Boss Media business through the dissemination of groundless rumors …
While there has been no hearing on the merits of the Poker Trillion suit, there have been preliminary hearings on the matter. Boss Media has assured that adequate security is provided in Malta in the event of an award of damages against it which we believe to be unlikely…
In the extremely unlikely event that any Malta operations would be affected, high-performance back-up systems are in place to ensure continued service to all our customers and their players.
IPN is currently ranked as the seventh most trafficked online gaming site or network on pokerscout.com. The network most known as Boss Media supports more than 40 skins including Celeb Poker, Canada Poker, Devilfish Poker, 24 Hour Poker, Fortune Poker and its most popular single skin, Paradise Poker. Meanwhile, IPN traded as BOSS on the Swedish Stock Exchange has seen no significant change since the judgment was issued earlier in the week.
