Ladbrokes 888 Bid March 2007

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Created on Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:34

Ladbrokes' has been mulling over a £470m takeover of online gaming firm 888 Holdings for some weeks now, but this may have been thrown into doubt by the recent UK Budget that was delivered by Gordon Brown.

Tax rules announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the budget give it few incentives to leave its base on The Rock in Gibraltar. The Government is to offer a 15% tax rate to offshore gambling compnies to try and get them to move to the United Kingdom. But most analysts agree that this is simply too much to be much of a pull off the territory.
It seems unlikely that a move to the UK would shield them from potential litigation from the US, and on top of that they would have to start paying 15% tax.