Caesars‘ bankruptcy proceedings are becoming increasingly messy, as the legal 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 question about the business’s ability to continue as a going concern.‘
It is the casino giant has utilized foreboding language whenever describing its long-term future, as it continues to battle its second-lien bondholders over a bankruptcy case that is increasingly complex.
Caesars Entertainment would like 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 advantage of its controlling private equity backers.
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 valuable assets out regarding the reach of the bondholders. In addition they accuse the business of developing a ‚good‘ Caesars and a ‚bad‘ Caesars; one to put on the properties that are valuable the other to put up the financial obligation.
Caesars argues that it paid good value for the assets extracted from the operating unit, which include Caesars’s World number of Poker rights, the Octavius Tower, Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Harrah’s New Orleans, Bally’s nevada and the Total Rewards customer loyalty 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 Wednesday the judge rejected a bid to dismiss or remain the action.
Beware the Ides of March
It’s been a bad number of weeks for Caesars. Last week Judge Benjamin Goldgar, who is hearing the case in Chicago, appointed an examiner that is court-ordered unlimited time and budget to investigate the asset transfers and any resulting 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 business ended up being quizzed by board members in 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 your retirement payments as part of a plan that is supplemental 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 complex bankruptcy in a generation.‘
Carl Icahn Compares Taj Mahal Union Management To Mobsters
Carl Icahn stated that union leaders are utilizing tactics similar to those of orderly crime. (Image: Huffington Post)
Carl Icahn has put lots of money into the Trump Taj Mahal in an attempt to save 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 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 further.
Letter Calls Casino Contributions Excessive
In a page delivered to members of the union, the Trump Taj Mahal’s future owner called out the union’s leadership, saying that they were really extorting cash from the casino by picketing the building and trying to hold on tight to their previous health plan.
‚ Over the last five years, while the Taj Mahal went bankrupt not just once, but twice, your Unite-HERE wellness plan has made $140 million in net income,‘ Icahn wrote into the page. ‚Yet even contrary to the backdrop of your employer entering bankruptcy for the next time in five years, your union leadership continues to demand that the Taj make exorbitant efforts to 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 existing agreements with the union, which would allow him to end the current health insurance and pension plans that union workers consented to.
Icahn would instead have employees simply 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 would likely close the casino.
Icahn Says Tactics Remind Him of ‚Bygone Era‘
In the letter, Icahn proceeded to compare the techniques of union leaders to those of unscrupulous figures of yesteryear.
‚It all reminds me of that bygone era when organized crime would demand grocers buy security, or suffer bricks being thrown through their store windows,‘ he penned. ‚ The only real huge difference right here is that instead of throwing bricks through the Taj Mahal’s windows, your union instead organizes strikes, picketing, boycotts and other attacks to deter clients from patronizing the Taj Mahal.‘
That picketing has continued in recent weeks. Last Friday, union https://freeslotsnodownload-ca.com/free-3d-slots/ members demonstrated again, the fifth time they have done therefore since the bankruptcy judge’s choice last October.
‚Carl Icahn has decided to operate the Taj Mahal into the ground while he’s waiting to go over,‘ said union president Bob McDevitt. ‚we say we’re perhaps not going to simply take this any longer. today‘
Icahn Approved to Take Over Taj Mahal
Last Thursday, a bankruptcy judge approved a plan that may see Icahn take over Trump Entertainment Resorts, the parent company of the Taj Mahal. Icahn will swap $286 million worth of debt he has in the ongoing company in trade for that ownership after the company emerges from bankruptcy.
‚The Taj will stay available,‘ said US Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross at a hearing last week. ‚And it is an effective endeavor.‘
That approval came simply times after the casino reached an agreement with Donald Trump that enables the Taj Mahal to help keep the Trump name attached with it for the foreseeable future. Trump and their child, Ivanka Trump, was in fact fighting to have their family title removed from the location.
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 really wants to bring the lottery to Nevada. Yes, that is correct: the gambling money of the globe won’t have a lottery, and that’s in big part to the gambling industry of this gambling capital of the entire world, which doesn’t want the competition. It’s even written in to the state’s constitution: no lotteries! Very nearly 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 the casino industry, must certanly be given the chance 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 so without increasing taxes.‘
Long Odds
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’ve already established, Nevada does not have a lottery, that could put their predicted 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 founded 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 is been introduced several sessions since i have 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 at the conclusion of the present session that is legislative. ‚I just said, ‚I’m gonna give it another shot.‘
Conservatives Aghast
Nevertheless, 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 consequence that the lottery might have in suggest that has one slot machine for every ten residents. ‚It’s devastating for a grouped household to deal with a individual who includes a gambling addiction,‘ she stated. ‚It destroys the family completely.‘
If the issue ever get to vote that is public nevertheless, it could possibly pass. A 2009 study revealed about 70 % 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 allowed to continue. (Image: pokerground.com)
Phil Ivey may still come out on ultimately top up against the Borgata in the lawsuit over the $9.6 million he won at baccarat using an side sorting technique.
But at least for the time being, a judge has said that the case has enough merit so it should not be thrown out of court completely, 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 carry on but offering few clues as to which side might have the top of hand in the legal battle.
The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa alleges that Ivey cheated in a series of sessions by which he played baccarat at their casino, including costs 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 attempting to recover from him. Ivey utilized an approach known as advantage sorting, by which he obtained conditions for the game where he was able to tell whether a card was high or low even when it ended up being face down.
That provided him a massive advantage over the casino in a game where the household typically has a tiny edge.
This was possible because one of the conditions involved utilizing an shoe that is eight-deck up of a certain type of Borgata playing cards: purple-backed cards manufactured by Gemaco. Unknown to the casino, this particular brand had backs that were maybe not perfectly cut; when Ivey then asked the dealer to turn high cards 180 degrees, ostensibly for superstitious reasons, he was then able to distinguish those cards even face down.