Former CEO Kenny Alexander charged over GVC Holdings bribery allegations
Entain entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the CPS back in 2023.
UK.- The UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has filed charges against 11 people including former CEO Kenny Alexander in relation to an investigation into allegations that a subsidiary of GVC Holdings, now Entain Plc, was involved in bribery in Turkey.
Alexander has been charged with conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to bribe. Former GVC chairman Lee Feldman has also been charged. The alleged bribery offences occured between 2011 and 2018. Robert Hoskin, Entain’s chief governance officer from 2020 to 2023, has been charged with perverting the course of justice in February 2024.
Meanwhile, former chief financial officer Richard Cooper, former group director of trading James Humberstone and former e-Technologies Global director Scott Masterston also face charges for conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to bribe.
Conexus director Robert Dowling, Inteliqo Limited financial director Raymond Smart and Caroline Patricia Roe, director of Loki Europe, Harliboo Limited and Valhalo, have also been charged, as has payments provider Ilixium’s co-founder and CEO, Richard Raubitscheck-Smith. Ilixium co-founder and director Alexander MacAngus has been charged with conspiracy to defraud. Roe also faces charges of fraudulent trading and fraudulent evasion of income tax.
In November 2023, Entain entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the CPS following a probe by HMRC. That allowed the company to pay a financial penalty of £585m to avoid further legal proceedings, but, as Focus Gaming News reported at the time, the agreement did not exclude the possibility that individuals at the company could face charges.
Richard Las, director of the HMRC’s fraud investigation service, said: “These are serious charges that relate to conspiracy to defraud, bribery, cheating the public revenue, evasion of income tax and perverting the course of justice among others”.
