888 CEO resigns amid investigation into anti-money laundering practices in the Middle East
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A vip The compliance scandal rocked online betting giant 888. The CEO it’s out now.
888 announced that Itai Pazner, chief executive officer and director, will immediately step down as CEO and as director. The firm’s non-executive chairman, Lord Mendelsohn, is taking up the position of interim executive chairman as the board seeks a permanent post CEO.
“On behalf of the board, I would like to thank Itai for his significant contributions to the company over more than 20 years, including the last four as CEO,” Mendelsohn said in a statement. “Itai played a very important role in building a company with powerful proprietary technology and successfully oversaw the early stages of the William Hill integration process. We wish him well in his future endeavours.”
In the wake of that announcement, the online gambling operator announced the suspension of vip activity in some of its .com marketplaces pending the outcome of an internal compliance investigation.
“Following an internal compliance review, it became clear that some best practices were not being followed in this regard KYC (Know your customer) e anti-money laundering (Anti-money laundering) for 888 vip customers in the Middle East region,” the company said.
“While further internal investigations are ongoing, the Board has taken the decision to stay vip customer accounts in the region, effective immediately. The Board currently estimates the impact to be less than 3% of Group revenues if the suspensions persist. Based on the Council’s current understanding, the identified process deficiencies are isolated to this region only.
Mendelsohn added: “The Board and I take the Group’s compliance responsibilities very seriously. When we were notified of problems with some of the 888 vip customers, the Board has taken decisive action. We will be uncompromising in our approach to compliance as we build a strong and sustainable business.”
The company’s shares fell about 20% on the news.
