Entain agreed a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) with the Crown Prosecution Service in December 2023 to dispose with a HMRC investigation regarding historic failures to prevent bribery in its former Turkish unit.
AG advised the operator on the DPA, which settled the claims against the company but not its former executives, and a number of other occasions.
An Entain spokesperson told NEXT.io: “Entain considers the claim to be without merit, and it will contest it robustly.”
According to legal filings obtained by the Financial Times, the two are seeking a declaration from the court they were clients of AG, and as such should have had access to the advice it gave Entain regarding the Turkish business.
The claim said: “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 DPA or otherwise, privileged materials to HMRC, the S… or other third parties.“Where the privilege in those materials was a t privilege shared by the claimants, the company was not entitled to waive privilege without the consent of the claimants.”
Entain faces leadership vacuum
The lawsuit comes as Entain again faces a leadership vacuum following the surprise exit of its former chief executive Gavin Isaacs, after only five months in post.
Stella David, who previously led the Ladbrokes owner on an interim basis, has again assumed control with former board member Pierre Bouchut taking over as chair.
A spokesperson for Alexander and Feldman told the FT that they “extensively relied on the specialist legal advice provided for their benefit by AG over the many years they grew” the business.
“They trusted throughout this time that their personal interests were properly protected and have therefore repeatedly sought unfettered access to all of that legal advice, which has so far been denied to them, by both AG and Entain, leaving them with no option but to bring this claim.”
The two executives also 888 leadership bid.
