
Caesars’ bankruptcy proceedings are becoming increasingly messy, as the legal proceedings against it jeopardize 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 company’s ability to continue as being a going concern.’
It’s the casino giant has used 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 operating that is main 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 a number of CEOC’s assets were fraudulently transferred to Caesars Entertainment along with 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 many valuable assets out associated with the reach associated with bondholders. In addition they accuse the organization of making a ‘good’ Caesars and a ‘bad’ Caesars; one to put up the properties that are valuable the other to put up the debt.
Caesars argues that it paid value that is good the assets taken from the operating product, such as Caesars’s World number 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 asked that the parent business, Caesars Entertainment, be protected from legal action during the course of the bankruptcy filing of CEOC. But on Wednesday the judge rejected a bid to dismiss or remain the action.
Beware the Ides of March
It’s been a couple that is bad of for Caesars. Last week Judge Benjamin Goldgar, who’s hearing the case in Chicago, appointed an examiner that is court-ordered unlimited time and budget to investigate the asset transfers and any ensuing conflicts of interest.
The request that is initial an examiner had result 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 pension payments to ex-employees. It’s comprehended that 63 previous workers, from executive level down, are owed nearly $33 million in retirement re payments as an ingredient of the plan that is supplemental company inherited through previous acquisitions.
Caesars’ attorney Steven Pesner told the board that the organization was ‘looking into’ the matter, but also warned that it was facing ‘the largest and most bankruptcy that is complex a generation.’
Carl Icahn Compares Taj Mahal Union Leaders To Mobsters
Carl Icahn stated that union leaders are using tactics similar to those of organized crime. (Image: Huffington Post)
Carl Icahn has put a ton of cash into the Trump Taj Mahal in an attempt to save yourself the Atlantic City casino, but there’s been one group it lightly: Unite-HERE Local 54, the union that represents workers at the casino that he hasn’t been on the best of terms with, to put.
Icahn and also the union have had plenty of harsh words for one another throughout the past months that are few but Icahn may have just ratcheted up the rhetoric further.
Letter Calls Casino Contributions Exorbitant
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.
‘ on the final five years, as the Taj Mahal went bankrupt not simply once, but twice, your Unite-HERE health plan has made $140 million in net income,’ Icahn published within the letter. ‘Yet also contrary to the backdrop of your employer bankruptcy that is entering the next time in 5 years, your union leadership continues to demand that the Taj make exorbitant efforts to your profitable Unite-HERE heath plan, or else suffer labor unrest.’
Icahn earlier won a ruling from a bankruptcy court that determined he could break existing contracts with the union, which would allow him to end the current medical health insurance and retirement plans that union workers consented to.
Icahn would instead have employees take subsidies and make 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’d likely close the casino.
Icahn Says Tactics Remind Him of ‘Bygone Era’
In the page, Icahn went on to compare the tactics of union leaders to those of unscrupulous characters freeslotsnodownload-ca.com of the past.
‘It all reminds me of the bygone era when organized crime would demand grocers purchase protection, or suffer bricks being thrown through their store windows,’ he wrote. ‘ The only real difference right here is that instead of throwing bricks through the Taj Mahal’s windows, your union instead organizes strikes, picketing, boycotts and other assaults to deter customers from patronizing the Taj Mahal.’
That picketing has continued in current months. Last Friday, union members demonstrated again, the time that is fifth have done therefore since the bankruptcy judge’s decision final October.
‘Carl Icahn has determined to operate the Taj Mahal into the ground while he is waiting to take it over,’ said union president Bob McDevitt. ‘Today we are saying we’re not gonna take this anymore.’
Icahn Approved to Take Over Taj Mahal
Final Thursday, a bankruptcy judge approved a plan that will see Icahn take control Trump Entertainment Resorts, the moms and dad company of the Taj Mahal. Icahn will swap $286 million worth of debt he owns in the company as a swap for that ownership once the business emerges from bankruptcy.
‘The Taj will stay available,’ said US Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross at a hearing last week. ‘And it is a successful venture.’
That approval came just times after the casino reached an agreement with Donald Trump that enables the Taj Mahal to help keep the Trump name mounted on it for the foreseeable future. Trump and their child, Ivanka Trump, was in fact fighting to have their family name removed from the place.
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 desires to bring the lottery to Nevada. Yes, that is right: the gambling capital of the world won’t have a lottery, and that’s in large component to the gambling industry of the gambling capital of the world, which doesn’t want the competition. It is even written into the state’s constitution: no lotteries! Almost 30 legislative tries 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 of revenue for our state that could be helping the scholarly education of our younger constituents,’ he said. ‘It would achieve this without increasing taxes.’
Very Long Odds
Members of the vegas press have noted, wryly, that Munford has about as much chance of making this happen as he has of… well… winning the lottery.
Since, as we have already established, Nevada does not have a lottery, that would put their estimated chances at zilch, which, in fairness, is slightly even worse compared to those living across the border in Ca or Arizona.
Nevada’s prohibition of lotteries was founded at statehood in 1864 and has remained sacrosanct since, although it had been 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 education that is public promoting the ‘health and welfare of senior citizens.’
‘I know it is been introduced a few sessions since I’ve been up here, and each time it’s always died. It is never been able to go forward,’ said Munford, who’s due to step down from office by the end regarding the current session that is legislative. ‘I just said, ‘I’m gonna give it another shot.’
Conservatives Aghast
Nonetheless, any legislation that proposes amending the constitution is certainly going to need a huge quantity of support. The bill would need to pass not only 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 result that the lottery might have in suggest that has one video slot for each ten residents. ‘It’s devastating for family to deal having a individual who features a gambling addiction,’ she stated. ‘It destroys the grouped family completely.’
If the issue ever get to vote that is public however, it would probably pass. A 2009 study revealed about 70 % of voters were in benefit. A lottery would bring $48 million an in profit for the state, research suggests year.
Judge Denies Ivey’s Motion 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 having an edge sorting technique.
But at minimum for now, a judge has stated that the instance has enough merit that it shouldn’t be thrown out of court totally, meaning the battle over those millions could go on for some time nevertheless.
District Court Judge Noel Lawrence Hillman denied a motion from Ivey’s lawyers to dismiss the costs against Ivey and other defendant Cheng Yin Sun, allowing the case to continue but providing few clues as to which part might have the upper hand 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 include fees of fraud, breach of contract and violations of RICO racketeering statutes.
Ivey Used Edge Sorting to Beat Casino at Baccarat
A dispute is concerned by the case 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 used a method known as advantage sorting, in which he obtained conditions for the overall game where he surely could tell whether a card was high or low also when it had been face down.
That gave him a huge advantage over the casino in a game where the home typically has a little advantage.
This was possible because one of the conditions involved using an shoe that is eight-deck up of a specific kind of Borgata playing cards: purple-backed cards manufactured by Gemaco. Unknown to the casino, this brand that is particular backs that were maybe not perfectly cut; when Ivey then asked the dealer to turn high cards 180 degrees, ostensibly for superstitious reasons, he had been then able to distinguish those cards even face down.