Legal Turmoil Insues Following Reveal of FanDuel Sale

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Transcript

00:00Well, one of the figures in the daily fantasy space and now in the sports betting space

00:08in the future, it was Nigel Eccles.

00:11For the people who are unfamiliar with him, he founded FanDuel going back approximately

00:15a decade ago, ended up selling it.

00:17I'm sure he cashed in quite well, but now is the subject of another story that you guys

00:22have up here over at legalsports.com, where there's some allegations that right before

00:26he sold, he may have tried to hamper with the company and dampen some of the future

00:31aspirations for it.

00:32What happened here?

00:33Well, what happened, Craig, and we know this because DraftKings and FanDuel attempted to

00:38merge at one point, right?

00:40And it was basically because both of the companies were burning cash like you wouldn't believe.

00:45And so what happened here is that when FanDuel was sold to Paddy Power Betfair, now the Flutter

00:51company, the valuation was taken at a level that Nigel Eccles and other shareholders didn't

00:57see as fair.

00:59And this is now the other shareholders' chances to say why that valuation was fair and why

01:07it clicked.

01:08And they're alleging that Nigel Eccles, the co-founder of FanDuel, essentially drove the

01:13business into the ground.

01:14Now, I don't know if he drove the business into the ground, Craig.

01:19I think that Nigel is great at what he did, and I think that there was a very tough operating

01:25environment going on in the 2016-2017 for DFS that we're talking about when these negotiations

01:31were going down.

01:32One of the things, though, is that this deal closed right after PASPA fell in the U.S.,

01:38but the deal was contingent on not letting that outcome impact the valuation.

01:43And so we heard from the defendants at this point, we have to see what the court is going

01:49to do.

01:50But, Craig, I think you would be surprised asking anybody familiar with FanDuel to find

01:54that one of the co-founders from FanDuel got nothing when the company was sold.