Former CEO and chairman sue Entain over Turkish bribery scandal

Kenny Alexander and Lee Feldman want access to information that was shared with the prosecutor.

UK.- There’s a new twist in the saga of the troubled FTSE 100-listed gambling giant Entain. The company, whose last CEO Gavin Isaacs made a surprise exit last week, is now reportedly being sued by its former CEO Kenny Alexander and former chairman Lee Feldman.

Alexander was CEO from 2007 to 2020. He was at the helm when a Turkish subsidiary was allegedly involved in the bribery offences that led to a £585m settlement with HMRC in November 2023. The controversy over Alexander’s leadership also led to him being dropped as a candidate to lead 888 Holdings (now Evoke) after the British Gambling Commission warned that it would probably find him to be unsuitable to lead a licensed gambling operator, which could have led to 888 being stripped of its licence.

The settlement with the HMRC covered Entain as a company only, which left open the possibility that former executives could still face legal charges. The Crown Prosecution Service has not announced whether it will pursue that. But at the start of the year, it emerged that Alexander and Feldman had launched a lawsuit against the Gambling Commission accusing it of leaking private data. Now they’re suing their former employer too. They accused Entain and its law firm Addleshaw Goddard (AG) of sharing privileged information with investigators probing the Turkish bribery allegations.

According to the Financial Times, the lawsuit lodged on Thursday (February 13) seeks a court order to gain access to the information that was shared with the prosecutor in HMRC’s case. Alexander and Feldman argue they were also clients of AG, and that they should therefore have access to the information. They also want information on the legal advice that was given.

“The claimants understand that the company and/or AG may have disclosed, in the course of the investigation and/or in the course of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) or otherwise, privileged materials” to HMRC and the Crown Prosecution Service, the lawsuit states. “Where the privilege in those materials was a joint privilege shared by the claimants, the company was not entitled to waive privilege without the consent of the claimants.”

Entain has said that it will contest the claim, which it considers to be without merit. AG said it was unable to comment due to client confidentiality obligations.

Entain is now facing claims from all sides. Investors in the London-listed gambling giant are also pursuing legal action regarding the settlement over the Turkish case. The law firm Fox Williams said last June that it would seek over £100m in compensation for institutional investors.