WORLD GAMING RESIGNATIONS A CONSEQUENCE OF U.S. LEGAL SITUATION

(521) (25-September-2006)

American-based directors cash in their chips

With the arbitrary arrests of online gaming executives taking place in the USA in recent months (see previous InfoPowa reports) it is perhaps understandable that directors who may be vulnerable to this sort of Department of Justice activity will be reconsidering their board of director options, and this is believed to be behind the surprise resignations this week of two top World Gaming directors.

World Gaming chairman James Grossman and non-executive director Clare Roberts have both resigned from the online gaming group on fears they will be arrested in the US.  And the arrests have prompted others, among them PartyGaming's chairman Michael Jackson , to eschew travel to the US unless absolutely necessary.

Both Grossman and Roberts practice as attorneys in the US, outside their work for World Gaming, while Grossman is also an adviser to the US Government, a spokesman said. Roberts is a former Attorney General of Antigua.

"Clearly they've got other business interests and they've got to be able to go to the US to be able to carry on their other business interests," World Gaming's spokesman said. He added that replacements would be named in due course.

World Gaming, which makes the bulk of its money from US gamblers, said earlier this month it was in talks over a possible all-share takeover by Sportingbet . However, in the wake of the arrest of the (now resigned) Sportingbet chairman in New York earlier this (September) month the deal seems to have at least for now been put on the back burner.