Evolution Continues Legal Quest to Identify Group Who Made Baseless Claims

Posted on: November 19, 2024, 03:05h. 

Last updated on: November 19, 2024, 03:14h.

Devin O'Connor @CasinoorgDevinO Read More
Expertise: Asia Pacific Gaming, Commercial Gaming, Legislation, Politics.

Evolution AB, a leading supplier of live dealer iGaming operations and developer of online casino gaming software, is continuing its legal fight in New Jersey to expose the identity of a group of individuals who in 2021 alleged that Evolution was providing offshore gaming companies services in unregulated markets.

Evolution Gaming complaint anonymous report
Evolution Gaming wants to know who was behind a 2021 false report claiming the Sweden-based iGaming firm operated in black markets. The legal battle to expose the anonymous group remains ongoing in New Jersey court. (Image: Evolution Gaming)

Three years ago this month, Calcagni & Kanefsky, a law firm headquartered in Newark, New Jersey that specializes in white-collar crime, filed a complaint with the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) alleging that Evolution was conducting business in various black markets, including in countries subject to US sanctions such as Iraq, Sudan, and Syria.

Calcagni & Kanefsky Senior Counsel Ralph Marra told state gaming officials he represented an anonymous group that conducted a covert operation to determine if Evolution was dealing games in black markets. The probe detailed alleged evidence that it was in a lengthy report provided to the DGE.   

The DGE’s subsequent probe into the allegations found no regulatory breaches and the Sweden-based iGaming business-to-business company was cleared of wrongdoing in February 2024.

“The New Jersey DGE found no evidence that Evolution sanctioned, promoted, permitted, or otherwise materially benefitted from its content offered by operators in any market that the New Jersey DGE considers a prohibited jurisdiction,” an Evolution statement read.

DGE considered the matter “closed.” Evolution did not, as the group wanted a state court to demand that the attorneys representing the anonymous group disclose who was behind the falsified report.

Casino.org has been in regular communication with a public relations firm claiming to represent the anonymous group. The PR outlet, based in New York City, claims the group is a US-based entity but is not a direct competitor of Evolution. Pressed to identify the anonymous group, the PR representative told Casino.org that is something he “cannot do.”

Case Continues

In August, New Jersey Superior Court Judge John Porto ruled against Evolution’s request for Marra and Calcagni & Kanefsky to make public the group behind the allegations. Evolution appealed the ruling, and last week filed an Argument and Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law.

This case presents the question of whether an anonymous wrongdoer may spread demonstrably false claims against a business, causing billions of dollars of damages, and then avoid accountability by laundering the false statements through counsel. The answer to this question is self-evidently no, as New Jersey law has never allowed wrongdoers to shield their identities through the simple expedient of hiring a law firm to disseminate their false statements,” Evolution’s counsel argued.

The filing goes on to allege that the individuals “cherrypicked” witnesses’ statements who were recorded “under false pretenses.” The filing explains to the court that the DGE found “that the claims against Evolution were not supported.”

Evolution respectfully requests that the Court order Defendants to reveal the identity of the Anonymous Investigative Firm to allow Evolution to proceed to full merits of discovery so that it may pursue its claims against the full group of appropriate parties,” the filing asks.

Attorneys for Evolution and the anonymous group are to submit supplemental briefs to Porto’s courtroom by December 9 that are not to exceed 20 pages in length.

Evolution’s Argument and Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law ran 276 pages. Calcagni & Kanefsky’s Memorandum of Law in Further Support of Defendants’ Motion for a Protective Order to preserve the confidentiality of the anonymous group, also filed last week, ran 58 pages.

Massive Losses

After the DGE confirmed receipt of the anonymous report and opened up its independent probe, Evolution’s publicly traded market capitalization plummeted by around $10 billion.

The company’s share price remains considerably down from the $162 it was trading at on Nov. 12, 2021, the day before the alleged bombshell report dropped. Evolution’s stock is currently trading around $90, though its depressed value isn’t only because of the false report.