I was attacked a couple weeks back when they first started talking about people closing programs. as far as i recal, Grand Prive said that back it was closing the program to US affiliates, effectively stealing non-US player bases, when they announced US pullout.
As i said back then, shutting the program, keeping the players and opening a new program is clearly a strategy to steal the remaining player base from the affiliate accounts. This is breach of contract for any organization that offered “your player for life”