
Caesars’ bankruptcy proceedings are getting to be increasingly messy, as the appropriate proceedings against it threaten its long-term future.
Caesars Entertainment has failed in its bid to own litigation dismissed by a Delaware judge this week, despite arguing that the ‘material uncertainty’ engendered by the lawsuit against it ‘raises substantial doubt about the business’s ability to continue as being a going concern.’
It’s the casino giant has utilized foreboding language whenever explaining its long-term future, since it continues to battle its second-lien bondholders over a bankruptcy case that is increasingly complex.
Caesars Entertainment desires to put its main operating unit, Caesars Entertainment Operating Corp. (CEOC), through Chapter 11 proceedings in purchase to restructure its industry-high debt.
However, the second-lien bondholders are suing, claiming that lots of CEOC’s assets were fraudulently transferred to Caesars Entertainment as well as other subsidiaries for the good thing about its controlling private equity backers.
We Come to Bury Caesars
This left CEOC with distressed assets and an inability to pay it $18 billion debt load, they argue, while placing the most valuable assets out associated with reach of this bondholders. They also accuse the company of creating a ‘good’ Caesars and a ‘bad’ Caesars; one to put up the valuable properties, the other to put up the debt.
Caesars argues that it paid value that is good the assets extracted from the operating product, including Caesars’s World Series of Poker rights, the Octavius Tower, Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Harrah’s New Orleans, Bally’s Las Vegas and the Total Rewards customer commitment program, among others.
Lawyers for the casino giant have expected that the parent company, Caesars Entertainment, be protected from appropriate action during the course of the bankruptcy filing of CEOC. But on the judge rejected a bid to dismiss or stay the action wednesday.
Beware the Ides of March
It’s been a bad number of weeks for Caesars. Last week Judge Benjamin Goldgar, that is hearing the case in Chicago, appointed an examiner that is court-ordered unlimited time and budget to investigate the asset transfers and any ensuing disputes of interest.
The request that is initial an examiner had come from Caesars itself, but only in relation to seven transfers challenged by the lawsuit. A spokesman for Caesars declined to comment on the decision.
Then, at a hearing of the Gaming Control Board, the ongoing company ended up being quizzed by board members regarding the cessation of retirement payments to ex-employees. It’s grasped that 63 previous workers, from executive level down, are owed nearly $33 million in retirement payments as part of the supplemental plan the company inherited through previous purchases.
Caesars’ attorney Steven Pesner told the board that the organization was ‘looking into’ the matter, but also warned that it was facing ‘the largest & most complex bankruptcy in a generation.’
Carl Icahn Compares Taj Mahal Union Management To Mobsters
Carl Icahn said that union leaders are using tactics comparable to those of planned crime. (Image: Huffington Post)
Carl Icahn has put a lot of cash into the Trump Taj Mahal in order to save the Atlantic City casino, but there’s been one group which he was not in the best of terms with, to place it lightly: Unite-HERE Local 54, the union that represents employees at the casino.
Icahn therefore the union have had plenty of harsh words for one another over the past months that are few but Icahn may have just ratcheted up the rhetoric even more.
Letter Calls Casino Contributions Excessive
The Trump Taj Mahal’s future owner called out the union’s leadership, saying that they were essentially extorting money from the casino by picketing the building and attempting to hold on to their previous health plan in a letter sent to members of the union.
‘ Over the last five years, although the Taj Mahal went bankrupt not just once, but twice, your Unite-HERE wellness plan has made $140 million in net income,’ Icahn had written within the letter. ‘Yet also up against the backdrop of your company entering bankruptcy for the second time in five years, your union leadership continues to demand that the Taj make excessive contributions towards the profitable Unite-HERE heath plan, or else suffer work unrest.’
Icahn earlier won a ruling from a bankruptcy court that determined he could break existing contracts with the union, which would enable him to get rid of the current health insurance and pension plans that union workers consented to.
Icahn would instead have workers just take subsidies and submit an application for health care plans under the exchanges arranged by the low-cost Care Act. The union is appealing this ruling, but Icahn says that if they should win that appeal, he would likely close the casino.
Icahn Says Tactics Remind Him of ‘Bygone Era’
In the letter, Icahn went on to compare the strategies of union leaders to those of unscrupulous characters of yesteryear.
‘It all reminds me personally of that bygone era when organized crime play the best 3d slots online would demand grocers buy security, or suffer bricks being thrown through their shop windows,’ he published. ‘ The only real huge difference right here is that instead of throwing bricks through the Taj Mahal’s windows, your union instead organizes hits, picketing, boycotts and other attacks to deter clients from patronizing the Taj Mahal.’
That picketing has continued in recent months. Last Friday, union members demonstrated once again, the time that is fifth have done therefore since the bankruptcy judge’s decision last October.
‘Carl Icahn has decided to perform the Taj Mahal into the ground while he’s waiting to go over,’ said union president Bob McDevitt. ‘Today we are saying we’re not planning to simply take this anymore.’
Icahn Approved to Take Over Taj Mahal
Last Thursday, a bankruptcy judge approved an idea that may see Icahn take over Trump Entertainment Resorts, the moms and dad company of the Taj Mahal. Icahn will swap $286 million worth of debt he has into the ongoing company as a swap for that ownership once the business emerges from bankruptcy.
‘The Taj will stay available,’ stated US Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross at a hearing week that is last. ‘And it’s going to be a successful venture.’
That approval came just times after the casino reached a contract with Donald Trump that will allow the Taj Mahal to keep the Trump name attached to it for the future that is foreseeable. Trump and his daughter, Ivanka Trump, have been fighting to have their family title removed from the venue.
Assemblyman Pushes For Nevada Lottery
Assemblyman Harvey Munford, who’s a better chance of winning the lottery than he does of establishing one in Nevada. (Image: yogonet.com)
Assemblyman Harvey Munford would like to bring the lottery to Nevada. Yes, that is right: the gambling capital of the global world doesn’t have a lottery, and that is in big part to the gambling industry associated with gambling capital of the planet, which doesn’t want the competition. It’s even written to the state’s constitution: no lotteries! Nearly 30 legislative attempts to establish a lottery in Nevada since 1975 have failed.
However, Munford was undeterred as he addressed the Assembly Legislative Operations and Elections Committee this arguing that voters, rather than the casino industry, should be given the chance to decide the issue week.
‘ This is a loss in revenue for our state that could be assisting the education of our younger constituents,’ he said. ‘It would achieve this without increasing taxes.’
Long Odds
Members of the Las vegas, nevada press have noted, wryly, that Munford has about as chance that is much of this happen as he has of… well… winning the lottery.
Since, as we have already established, Nevada does not need a lottery, that could put his approximated chances at zilch, which, in fairness, is just slightly worse than those living across the border in California or Arizona.
Nevada’s prohibition of lotteries was established at statehood in 1864 and has remained sacrosanct since, although it absolutely was amended by voters in 1990 to allow charity lotteries. Munford’s Assembly Joint Resolution No. 6 wants to scrap the ban and embrace a state lottery as a method of supporting general public education and promoting the ‘health and welfare of senior citizens.’
‘I know it’s been introduced several sessions since I’ve been up here, and every time it’s always died. It’s never been able to go forward,’ said Munford, who’s due to step down from office at the conclusion associated with current legislative session. ‘I just said, ‘I’m gonna give it another shot.’
Conservatives Aghast
However, any legislation that proposes amending the constitution is certainly going to need an amount that is huge of. The bill would need to pass not just this session of the Legislature but the 2017 session also, before going to vote that is public 2018.
And there is opposition not simply from the casino industry but also from conservative associations. Conservative activist Janine Hansen is aghast at the end result that the lottery might have in declare that has one slot machine for each ten residents. ‘It’s devastating for a grouped family members to deal with a one who has a gambling addiction,’ she said. ‘It destroys the family totally.’
Should the issue ever get to public vote, but, it may possibly pass. A 2009 study showed about 70 % of voters were in benefit. A lottery would bring $48 million a year in profit for their state, research suggests.
Judge Denies Ivey’s Movement To Dismiss Borgata Lawsuit
The Borgata’s lawsuit against Phil Ivey will likely be allowed to continue. (Image: pokerground.com)
Phil Ivey may still ultimately come out on top against the Borgata in the lawsuit over the $9.6 million he won at baccarat utilizing an side sorting technique.
But at least for now, a judge has stated that the situation has enough merit it should not be thrown out of court completely, meaning the battle over those millions could go on for a few time nevertheless.
District Court Judge Noel Lawrence Hillman denied a motion from Ivey’s lawyers to dismiss the fees against Ivey and other defendant Cheng Yin Sun, allowing the case to continue but providing few clues as to which part may have top of the turn in the legal battle.
The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa alleges that Ivey cheated in a number of sessions by which he played baccarat at their casino, which includes charges of fraud, breach of agreement and violations of RICO racketeering statutes.
Ivey Used Edge Sorting to Beat Casino at Baccarat
The case concerns a dispute over four sessions of baccarat that Ivey played in 2012, during which he won the $9.6 million that the Borgata is now wanting to recover from him. Ivey utilized a method known as advantage sorting, in which he obtained conditions for the overall game where he surely could tell whether a card was low or high even when it ended up being face down.
That offered him a massive advantage over the casino in a game where the house typically has a small edge.
This was possible because one of the conditions involved using an eight-deck footwear made up of a certain kind of Borgata playing cards: purple-backed cards manufactured by Gemaco. Unknown to the casino, this particular brand had backs that have been maybe not perfectly cut; when Ivey then asked the dealer to turn high cards 180 degrees, ostensibly for superstitious reasons, he was then in a position to distinguish those cards even face down.
Comentários