LONDON (Reuters) -British betting company Entain’s former CEO and other senior directors appeared in a London court on Monday charged with bribery and fraud connected to gambling in Turkey.
Kenny Alexander, chief executive of the company formerly called GVC until his departure in 2020, is charged with conspiracy to bribe and conspiracy to defraud between 2011 and 2018.
Alexander, 56, led the company from 2007 and turned it from an upstart gambling firm into a FTSE 100 business, orchestrating the 4 billion-pound ($5.37 billion) acquisition of Ladbrokes Coral announced in 2017.
GVC’s former non-executive chairman Lee Feldman, 57, and ex-CFO Richard Cooper, 64, are also charged with conspiracy to bribe and conspiracy to defraud.
The conspiracy to defraud charge alleges Alexander, Feldman, Cooper and others conspired to defraud financial institutions or those performing financial monitoring or compliance functions by concealing the source of money made from gambling in Turkey.
None of the defendants were asked to enter a plea to any of the charges and were granted bail until their next court appearance at Southwark Crown Court on November 3.
A lawyer for Alexander was not immediately available for comment, but he previously told the Financial Times that the case would be “vigorously defended”.
Entain said in a statement when the charges were announced in August that neither Entain nor any current employees had been charged.
($1 = 0.7448 pounds)
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
