Entain Close To Agreeing £585m Penalty With UK CPS

Entain has reached a preliminary approval for its agreement with the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to pay a £585m penalty over its former Turkish-facing business.

The company announced on Friday (November 24) that it has “in principle” reached a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with the CPS.

The terms in the DPA would see Entain pay a “financial penalty plus disgorgement of profits totalling £585m, to make a charitable donation of £20m and to pay a contribution of £10m to HMRC and the CPS’s costs”, according to the announcement. These would be paid in instalments over a four-year period. 

Entain is now seeking final judicial approval from the court on December 5, 2023. The company said it will provide a further announcement after the hearing ends, including details of the finalised DPA. 

Barry Gibson, Entain’s chairman, said: "This legacy matter concerns a business which was sold by a former management team six years ago. The group has changed immeasurably since these events took place, and the DPA process has provided a reminder of the stark differences between the GVC of yesterday and the Entain of today." 

The company is committed to “continuing its journey to operating only in regulated markets", according to Gibson.

Entain is understood to have been working to reassure regulators in jurisdictions where it has licences throughout the process of how the business has changed since the events that gave rise to the DPA.

A spokesperson for HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the UK's tax authority, told Vixio GamblingCompliance it will not provide a comment until after the final hearing.

The Gambling Commission also said it does not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.

The proceedings began after HMRC investigated Entain’s Turkish-facing business, which it sold in 2017 and arose from alleged bribery offences, including the failure to have adequate procedures in place to prevent bribery. 

Entain announced that it expected to reach an £585m agreement in August 2023. The company has been providing updates on the case since July 2020.