International Game Technology (IGT) might face legal charges for purchasing the social gaming company BringIt Inc. in a $10-million deal without publicly disclosing the information to its shareholders.

Under the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s Regulation Fair Disclosure, or Reg FD, public companies are legally bound to disclose to its investors any data related to purchases, sales or acquisitions.

The deal has resulted in a discussion among lawyers when the bank Pagemill Partners overlooked the transaction and didn’t acknowledge the need to make it public. It is now also known that one of Pagemill’s directors is Milledge Hart, husband of Patti Hart, CEO of IGT.

IGT states that the transaction was so small there was no need to make it public, and it was in fact, nonmaterial to IGT’s finances. Susan Cartwright, IGT’s Vice President of Corporate Communications, said the deal didn’t require the typical 8-K form, a legal form used for notifying shareholders of material events, since it didn’t represent much for the company’s stakes.

During a news broadcast, Cartwright confirmed:

With respect to the BringIt transaction, the independent directors of the IGT board were fully apprised and consulted with outside legal counsel and vetted the issue in executive session […] therefore, no disclosure was required.

Shareholders are now claiming that the company has been hiding this information for over a year.

Moreover, IGT’s CEO, Patti Hart has been heavily criticized for making unwise financial decisions, particularly after purchasing DoubleDown casino for $500 million a year ago and for hiding the internal turmoil among board members concerning the future head of the company.

The proxy fight between the incumbent CEO, Patti Hart, and IGT’s board member, Charles Mathewson, is still unresolved. The final resolution should come by March 5^th, the date of IGT’s annual shareholder meeting.