Lottery firm is given deadline to come clean

The Camelot shareholders GTech have been given 17 days to prove they are "fit and proper" to be involved in running the National Lottery, it was announced yesterday.

John Stoker, acting regulator of Oflot, said he was satisfied all links between GTech and its disgraced former director Guy Snowden had been severed in the wake of allegations that he tried to bribe Richard Branson, but he said the company still needed to dispel concerns over its ethics and business practices before he could decide whether Camelot should carry on running the lottery.

The company has been given until 9 March to give assurances on the legality of GTech business practices both past and present around the world. Under terms of the National Lottery Act, the licence to run the game can be revoked if any person managing the lottery or benefiting from it "is not a fit and proper person to do so."

Mr Snowden, the then head of US-based GTech, resigned nearly three weeks ago after Mr Branson was awarded pounds 100,000 in damages over Mr Snowden's alleged attempt to bribe him into abandoning his attempt to secure the franchise.

The jury accepted that the Virgin tycoon was telling the truth when he claimed that Mr Snowden offered the bribe as the two men lunched at Mr Branson's London home in 1993. Following an initial investigation in the wake of the hearing, Mr Stoker, who was appointed acting regulator after Peter Davis's resignation, said he noted that no evidence had been put forward during the hearing that the board of GTech had been involved in the attempted bribe.

He added that no GTech officials had been found guilty of wrongdoing in the US "in the furtherance of GTech's interests".

But he said: "I have noted also the gravity of the fact that Mr Snowden, as chairman and chief executive of the company, offered a bribe to Mr Branson; the view expressed by Mr Branson and others that he did so as the company's alter ego; and continuing concern about some of GTech's apparent business practices in the United States.

"I have asked the board of GTech Holdings Corporation, by March 9 to provide me with evidence in support of their fitness and propriety to be involved in and benefit from the UK National Lottery.

"Having considered their representations ... I will reach my conclusions on whether it would be appropriate for me to take further action under the National Lottery Act 1993."

He added that he was satisfied that Mr Snowden's resignation from the board of GTech and its US parent company, GTech Corporation, had removed him from influence over the UK Lottery. Although Mr Snowden still has a 1 per cent shareholding in GTech, Mr Stoker said this was not grounds enough to revoke Camelot's licence.

But he warned if that shareholding were to grow in future, giving Mr Snowden influence over the company, he would move to take away the licence.