
Caesars’ bankruptcy proceedings have become increasingly messy, as the appropriate 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 question about the company’s ability to continue as being a going concern.’
It’s the casino giant has used foreboding language when explaining its long-term future, since it continues to battle its second-lien bondholders over an increasingly complex bankruptcy case.
Caesars Entertainment desires to put its main operating unit, Caesars Entertainment Operating Corp. (CEOC), through Chapter 11 proceedings in order 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 along with other subsidiaries for the advantage of its controlling equity that is private.
We Come to Bury Caesars
This left CEOC with distressed assets plus an inability to spend it $18 billion debt load, they argue, while placing the most assets that are valuable associated with the reach of the bondholders. They also accuse the business of fabricating a ‘good’ Caesars and a ‘bad’ Caesars; one to put on the valuable properties, the other to keep the financial obligation.
Caesars argues that it paid value that is good the assets taken from the operating product, including 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 loyalty program, among others.
Solicitors for the casino giant have asked that the parent business, 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 is been a couple that is bad of for Caesars. Last week Judge Benjamin Goldgar, that is hearing the case in Chicago, appointed a court-ordered examiner with unlimited time and budget to investigate the asset transfers and any ensuing disputes of interest.
The initial request for an examiner had originate 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 business had been quizzed by board members on the cessation of pension payments to ex-employees. It’s understood that 63 previous workers, from executive level down, are owed nearly $33 million in your retirement payments as part of a supplemental plan the company inherited through previous purchases.
Caesars’ attorney Steven Pesner told the board that the company was ‘looking into’ the matter, but also warned that it was facing ‘the largest and a lot of complex bankruptcy in a generation.’
Carl Icahn Compares Taj Mahal Union Management To Mobsters
Carl Icahn stated that union leaders are using tactics similar to those of planned crime. (Image: Huffington Post)
Carl Icahn has put a lot of money into the Trump Taj Mahal in order to save yourself the Atlantic City casino, but there’s been one group which he wasn’t regarding the best of terms with, to put it lightly: Unite-HERE Local 54, the union that represents employees at the casino.
Icahn plus the union have had plenty of harsh words for each other within the past months that are few but Icahn may have just ratcheted up the rhetoric even further.
Letter Calls Casino Contributions Exorbitant
The Trump Taj vegas slots 3d 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 final five years, while the Taj Mahal has gone bankrupt not just once, but twice, your Unite-HERE wellness plan has made $140 million in net income,’ Icahn published in the letter. ‘Yet also contrary to the backdrop of your company entering bankruptcy for the 2nd 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 labor unrest.’
Icahn earlier won a ruling from a bankruptcy court that determined he could break current contracts with the union, which would enable him to get rid of the present health insurance and retirement plans that union workers consented to.
Icahn would instead have employees take subsidies and submit an application for health care plans under the exchanges put up by the Affordable 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 letter, Icahn went on to compare the techniques of union leaders to those of unscrupulous characters of yesteryear.
‘It all reminds me of this bygone age when organized crime would demand grocers purchase security, or suffer bricks being thrown through their shop windows,’ he published. ‘ The only real distinction 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 recent days. Last Friday, union members demonstrated once more, the fifth time they 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 perhaps not going to just take this anymore.’
Icahn Approved to Take Over Taj Mahal
Final Thursday, a bankruptcy judge approved an agenda that will 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 after the company emerges from bankruptcy.
‘The Taj will remain open,’ stated US Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross at a hearing last week. ‘And it’s going to be an effective venture.’
That approval came just days after the casino reached a contract with Donald Trump that allows the Taj Mahal to keep the Trump name attached to it for the future that is foreseeable. Trump and his daughter, Ivanka Trump, was indeed 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’s right: the gambling money of the global world does not have a lottery, and that is in large component to the gambling industry of this gambling capital of the planet, which doesn’t want the competition. It’s even written into the state’s constitution: no lotteries! Almost 30 attempts that are legislative establish a lottery in Nevada since 1975 have actually failed.
However, Munford was undeterred as he addressed the Assembly Legislative Operations and Elections Committee this week, arguing that voters, rather compared to casino industry, is provided the opportunity to decide the issue.
‘ This is a loss in revenue for our state that could be assisting the education of our younger constituents,’ he said. ‘It would do this without increasing taxes.’
Very Long Chances
Members of the Las Vegas 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 now have already established, Nevada does not need a lottery, that could put his calculated chances at zilch, which, in fairness, is only slightly worse compared to those living across the border in Ca or Arizona.
Nevada’s prohibition of lotteries was established 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 means of supporting education that is public 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 ahead,’ said Munford, who’s due to step down from office by the end associated with the present session that is legislative. ‘I just said, ‘I’m gonna give it another shot.’
Conservatives Aghast
Nonetheless, any legislation that proposes amending the constitution goes to need an amount that is huge of. The bill would need to pass not merely this session of the Legislature but the 2017 session also, before going to public vote in 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 a lottery might have in a continuing suggest that has one slot machine game for each ten residents. ‘It’s devastating for family members to deal by having a individual who features a gambling addiction,’ she stated. ‘It destroys the family completely.’
If the issue ever get to public vote, nevertheless, it would probably pass. A 2009 survey revealed about 70 % of voters were in benefit. A lottery would bring $48 million a year in revenue for their state, research indicates.
Judge Denies Ivey’s Movement To Dismiss Borgata Lawsuit
The Borgata’s lawsuit against Phil Ivey are permitted to continue. (Image: pokerground.com)
Phil Ivey may still come out on ultimately top against the Borgata in the lawsuit over the $9.6 million he won at baccarat having an advantage sorting technique.
But at minimum for the time being, a judge has said that the full situation has enough merit so it should not be tossed out of court completely, meaning the battle over those millions could carry on for some time still.
District Court Judge Noel Lawrence Hillman denied a motion from Ivey’s lawyers to dismiss the charges against Ivey and other defendant Cheng Yin Sun, allowing the case to continue but giving few clues as to which part may have top of the submit the battle that is legal.
The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa alleges that Ivey cheated in a number of sessions in which he played baccarat at their casino, including costs 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 attempting to recover from him. Ivey used a technique 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 also when it ended up being face down.
That offered him an enormous advantage over the casino in a game where the house typically has an edge that is small.
This was possible because one of the conditions involved having an eight-deck footwear made up of a particular kind of Borgata playing cards: purple-backed cards manufactured by Gemaco. Unknown to the casino, this brand that is particular backs that have been 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.