NETeller Engages High Powered U.S. Lawyers
Published: Friday, March 09, 2007 Online-Casinos.com
NETELLER ENGAGES HIGH POWERED U.S. LAWYERS
With plenty at stake, Isle of Man e-wallet hires the world's biggest legal firm
NETeller is starting to show some public signs of mettle after weeks of being perceived as allowing the U.S. Department of Justice to stomp all over it despite its Isle of Man registration as a financial institution and UK stock market positioning.
According to a news report in Legal Week, the British e-wallet has hired the professional services of Clifford Chance - arguably the world's biggest law firm.
LW reports that the legal company now has teams in both New York and the British Isles working on the NETeller-U.S. DoJ issue, which started in January when the American authorities arrested two Canadian founding fathers of NETeller in the States, despite the fact that these individuals no longer held any executive positions of authority with the company.
The two men have yet to be brought to trial, but the arrests triggered an immediate and what is widely perceived to be unnecessarily subservient reaction from NETeller, which barred US transactions to online gambling sites and froze the accounts of US players. Later reports suggested that the e-wallet was cooperating fully with visiting Department of Justice officials. The company also suspended trading in its shares on the London AIM market, a situation still pertaining.
Legal Week reports that John Carroll and Warren Feldman will be NETeller's counsel in the United States, with David Lewis and Jenine Hulsmann working on the case on the other side of the Atlantic in the UK.
The head of enforcement at Clifford Chance, Carlos Conceicao will counsel NETeller on Financial Services Authority matters.
