Caesars’ bankruptcy proceedings are becoming increasingly messy, as the proceedings that are legal it threaten its long-term future.
Caesars Entertainment has failed in its bid to have 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 business’s ability to carry on as a going concern.’
It’s the casino giant has used foreboding language whenever explaining its long-term future, as 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 lots of CEOC’s assets were fraudulently transferred to Caesars Entertainment and other subsidiaries for the advantage of its controlling equity that is private.
We Come to Bury Caesars
This left CEOC with distressed assets as well as an inability to spend it $18 billion debt load, they argue, while placing the many assets that are valuable regarding the reach associated with bondholders. In addition they accuse the organization of making a ‘good’ Caesars and a ‘bad’ Caesars; one to put on the valuable properties, the other to put on the debt.
Caesars argues that it paid value that is good the assets taken from the operating unit, which include Caesars’s World variety 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 company, Caesars Entertainment, be protected from legal action during the program 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 days 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 resulting conflicts 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 company had been quizzed by board members regarding the cessation of pension re payments to ex-employees. It’s recognized that 63 previous workers, from executive level down, are owed nearly $33 million in your retirement re payments as an ingredient of a 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 and most bankruptcy that is complex a generation.’
Carl Icahn Compares Taj Mahal Union Management To Mobsters
Carl Icahn said that union leaders are utilizing tactics comparable to those of arranged crime. (Image: Huffington Post)
Carl Icahn has put lots of money into the Trump Taj Mahal in an effort to save yourself the Atlantic City casino, but there is been one group which he wasn’t in the best of terms with, to place it lightly: Unite-HERE Local 54, the union that represents workers at the casino.
Icahn therefore the union have had plenty of harsh words for one another within the past months that are few but Icahn may have just ratcheted up the rhetoric even further.
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.
‘ on the last five years, even though the Taj Mahal moved bankrupt not just once, but twice, your Unite-HERE wellness plan has made $140 million in net income,’ Icahn penned into the letter. ‘Yet also up against the backdrop of your employer bankruptcy that is entering the next time in five years, your union leadership continues to demand that the Taj make exorbitant contributions to your 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 agreements with the union, which would allow him to end the health that is current and pension plans that union workers consented to.
Icahn would instead have workers just take subsidies and make an application for health care plans under the exchanges create 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 page, Icahn proceeded to compare the techniques of union leaders to those of unscrupulous characters of yesteryear.
‘It all reminds me personally of that bygone age when organized crime would demand grocers purchase protection, or suffer bricks being thrown through their store windows,’ he had written. ‘ The only real distinction 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 customers from patronizing the Taj Mahal.’
That picketing has continued in current weeks. Last Friday, union members demonstrated once more, the time that is fifth have done therefore since the bankruptcy judge’s decision final October.
‘Carl Icahn has determined to run the Taj Mahal into the ground while he is waiting to go on it over,’ said union president Bob McDevitt. ‘we are saying we’re perhaps not going to just take this any longer. today’
Icahn Approved to Take Over Taj Mahal
Final Thursday, a bankruptcy judge approved an agenda which will see Icahn dominate Trump Entertainment Resorts, the moms and dad company of the Taj Mahal. Icahn will swap $286 million worth of debt he has in the ongoing company in trade for that ownership once the business emerges from bankruptcy.
‘The Taj will stay open,’ said US Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross at a hearing last week. ‘And it’s going to be an effective endeavor.’
That approval came simply times after the casino reached an agreement with Donald Trump that will allow the Taj Mahal to help keep the Trump name attached to it for the future that is foreseeable. Trump and their daughter, Ivanka Trump, was in fact fighting to have their family name removed through the place.
Assemblyman Pushes For Nevada Lottery
Assemblyman Harvey Munford, who has 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 world does not have a lottery, and that’s in large part to the gambling industry associated with gambling capital of the world, which doesn’t want the competition. It is even written into the state’s constitution: no lotteries! Almost 30 attempts that are legislative 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 https://freeslotsnodownload-ca.com/free-3d-slots/. ‘It would do this without increasing taxes.’
Very Long Chances
Members of the nevada press have noted, wryly, that Munford has about as much possibility of making this happen as he has of… well… winning the lottery.
Since, as we’ve already established, Nevada does not need a lottery, that would put his approximated chances at zilch, which, in fairness, is just slightly even worse compared to 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 way of supporting education that is public promoting the ‘health and welfare of senior residents.’
‘I know it’s been introduced several sessions since I’ve been up here, and every time it’s always died. It is never been able to go forward,’ said Munford, who is due to step down from office at the end of the current legislative session. ‘I just said, ‘I’m gonna give it another shot.’
Conservatives Aghast
However, any legislation that proposes amending the constitution is 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 effect that a lottery might have in a continuing state that has one video slot for each and every ten residents. ‘It’s devastating for a grouped family members to deal by having a individual who features a gambling addiction,’ she stated. ‘It destroys the grouped family totally.’
Should the issue ever get to vote that is public however, it would probably pass. A 2009 study showed about 70 percent of voters were in favor. A lottery would bring $48 million an in profit for the state, research suggests year.
Judge Denies Ivey’s Movement To Dismiss Borgata Lawsuit
The Borgata’s lawsuit against Phil Ivey is permitted to continue. (Image: pokerground.com)
Phil Ivey may still ultimately emerge on top from the Borgata into the lawsuit over the $9.6 million he won at baccarat having an edge sorting technique.
But at least for the present time, a judge has stated that the full case has enough merit it shouldn’t be thrown out of court totally, meaning the battle over those millions could go on for many time nevertheless.
District Court Judge Noel Lawrence Hillman denied a motion from Ivey’s lawyers to dismiss the fees against Ivey and fellow defendant Cheng Yin Sun, allowing the case to carry on but providing few clues as to which side might have the top of submit the battle that is legal.
The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa alleges that Ivey cheated in a number of sessions by which he played baccarat at their casino, which include charges of fraud, breach of agreement 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 attempting to recover from him. Ivey used a method known as side sorting, in which he obtained conditions for the overall game where he was able to tell whether a card was high or low even when it had been face down.
That provided him a huge advantage over the casino in a game where the household typically has an edge that is small.
This was possible because certainly one of the conditions involved using an shoe that is eight-deck up of a specific type of Borgata playing cards: purple-backed cards manufactured by Gemaco. Unknown to the casino, this specific brand had backs that were perhaps 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.