As some of my readers have already seen, I posted a story on a pending lawsuit that was filed by Clonie Gowen’s attorneys in a Las Vegas court yesterday. At the time of the posting, it was unknown why she was bringing her former employers to court in the first place.
Well, after a few more hours from the initial breaking of the story – and some extra digging by the media staff over at PokerNews.com, it looks as if we finally have an answer:
She’s suing Full Tilt Poker for $40,000,000 over a breach of contract!
Gowen alleges that when she signed on as a Full Tilt pro back in 2004, she was promised a 1% ownership of the company. She went on to sport FTP gear around the tournament circuit, appeared in television commercials and promotional ads, and essentially did her part in promoting the Online Poker mega-brand as best she could – for no added compensation beyond her supposed 1% stake in the company.
Well, in 2007, when it came time to receive her distribution check, she was only given a fraction of what she thought she was owed – which was $250,000 from Howard Lederer, chief operator of Full Tilt Generasitogel Poker. Gowen felt the company was worth way more than what Lederer was making it seem to be, and refused the payment. The crazy thing is, despite not being paid she still went ahead and promoted the company anyways!
On November 11th, 2008, she was informed by Full Tilt Poker that she would no longer be apart of Team Full Tilt. This must’ve been the primary factor for Gowen to be bringing such a high-profile lawsuit against the company, especially considering she was supposedly never compensated for promoting the company for the last four years. The tough thing about this suit is that she openly admits to only having an oral contract that was made with Tiltware LLC executives (controlling company of Full Tilt Poker), and not a definitive written contract about her claims.
The suit alleges the company is worth $4 billion, and she’s owed the 1% she was promised by executives when she signed on with FTP in 2004. It is unclear why she not only named Tiltware LLC in the legal filing, but also other Full Tilt team members such as Phil Ivey, Andy Bloch, and Erick Lindgren.
Tiltware LLC has released the following statement about the claims:
“Tiltware, LLC, has been made aware of the recent filing of a meritless lawsuit by a former Full Tilt Poker endorser — Ms. Cycalona Gowen. All claims have no merit and there are many inaccuracies improperly and unlawfully asserted by Ms. Gowen within her frivolous complaint. Tiltware LLC expects that this lawsuit will be dealt with accordingly by a competent court in due course.”
The Guru will keep track of this as it progresses in the coming days. Stay tuned – and in the mean time, you can still get the best deposit bonus by using a special referral code Full Tilt offers up when you download the poker software.
