Tusk Investment Players to Receive Liquidation Payments July 21
Players that lost money on Tusk Investment skins received some good news today. After waiting over five years, a date for payment and the percentage to be paid was announced.
Tusk Investment liquidators will pay between $.13 and $.16 on the dollar for all balances owed. This includes player balances, as well as vendors and others owed money by the company that went into liquidation in 2008.
Tusk Investment creditors have until June 5, 2013 to file a claim. Any creditor that has not done so already must send an email to [email protected] with their personal information and proof of the debt. The required Proof of Debt form may be found on page 8 of the release made by PPB Advisory, Tusk Investment’s liquidator. This includes screenshots of balance screens or any other documentation that would support the claim to a refund. Payments will then be processed on or about July 21, 2013 and will be sent by bank wire or check.
The liquidator states that only 358 Proof of Debt forms have been successfully submitted. There are 3,158 known creditors.
PPB Advisory was able to recover $1.74 million in cash from Tusk bank accounts and sales of operations. Legal and liquidator fees were $441k, which leaves about $1.3 million in cash that will be distributed to creditors. All figures are in AUD. One AUD equals about $.97 USD at the time of this post.
An October 2010 report by PPB Advisory stated that an estimated $800,000 could not be recovered. These funds were held by ewallets or were in transit at the time operations ceased. The named parties withholding funds include Neteller, Firepay, EcoCard and Moneybookers. It is not clear if some of these funds were eventually recovered, though the same difficulty with compelling some asset holders to pay was mentioned in today’s release. If none of the mentioned funds were recovered then creditors lost about $.08 on the dollar.
Tusk Investment closed their Microgaming casino and poker operations on February 27, 2008 after Microgaming revoked its license to operate its software. The company entered liquidation on March 6, 2008. An oversight board known as eCOGRA suspended Tusk Investment’s seal of approval two weeks prior to the company ceasing operations.
There were 28 micro skins that were licensed by Tusk Investment. These included Battlefield Poker, Red Nines, Arctic Poker and Royal Card Club. Some of these skins were owned by rakeback affiliates, including the now defunct Rake Reduction. Tusk was under investigation by Microgaming for violating the network’s 30% rakeback cap. A dispute between Tusk and Microgaming had been brewing over the rakeback issue for months. This appears to be the reason the network lost its Microgaming license. With no platform to operate on, and a shortfall of cash, Tusk had no other choice but to enter liquidation.