“I don’t have any authority to disband a committee that the U.S. trustee has appointed,” said Judge A. Benjamin Goldgar, handing a victory to the second-tier debtors in the 
Caesars Entertainment bankruptcy. Caesars had sought to have the creditors’ watchdog committee dissolved into one representing unsecured creditors. As the Wall Street Journal summarized, the committee has “challenged the legality of several prebankruptcy transactions [Caesars Entertainment Operating Co.] made with its parent company.”
At issue are transactions which transferred $6 billion in assets to other Caesars branches. Paradoxically, the second-tier lenders want to probe the matter on their own while Caesars has called for an independent examiner. So has a group of bondholders and unsecured creditors represented by Wilmington Trust. The second-tier bondholders allege that Caesars “requested an examination of the challenged transactions, not to find out what they did or what they should do now to remedy their wrongs, but rather to forestall creditor investigations and access to documents.”
Caesars is offering the proposed examiner $10 million, provided it can get the job done in 120 days and creditors’ examinations are put on hold. Wilmington Trust wants to nix that, citing a 1993 judicial precedent that read, “one cannot think of a solid reason why a debtor would request an investigation of its own affairs unless it is used as a strategic move to prevent a harsher alternative.”
Although inclined to approve some form of investigation, Judge Goldgar hasn’t delved into the paperwork yet and said he’s not consequently ready to rule. He did, however, OK Caesars’ request to keep paying employees and vendors. He set to one side for the time being creditors’ opposition to having Kirkland & Ellis LLP appointed to represent them. The objection is that the firm has “taken a dive,” having represented Caesars’ owners, Texas Pacific Group and Apollo Management.
* The Dotty’s imbroglio has become big enough news to attract the attention of the Los Angeles Times. Basically, having spurned absorption into Station Casinos, it has now 
become Station’s Enemy Number One, with the dirty work being done by tame politicians like Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak (left). The LAT profiles the prototypical Dotty’s customer — Vegas executive assistant Becky Johnson, for whom Dotty’s workers “workers have studied her preference for Camel Crush cigarettes and sugarless Monster energy drinks.” It also lays out the Dotty’s model of decorous behavior, convenience food, sunlight through the windows and clocks on the wall. It’s basically the casino for people who don’t like casinos.
That chafes other operators, whether giants like Station or one-offs such as aptly named Three Angry Wives. Having failed to squelch Dotty’s at the county level, it’s in the cross-hairs of the Lege this year. State Sen. Tick Segerblom (D, below) has introduced a bill to create a new, higher (naturally) tax category for Dotty’s. Hyperbole in full flood, Segerblom said, “If 
little old ladies want someplace other than a sports bar with its smoke and men, that’s fine. But this business model is causing us to lose the ability to earn revenues to help pay for gambling’s negative societal impacts.** We can’t allow Dotty’s to get away scot-free and make gazillions of dollars.”
(** — It’s interesting that a legislator would be moved to acknowledge problem gambling in Nevada — but only in order to squelch a vexingly successful business model.)
Station Vice President for Government Affairs Mike Sloan sounds fatigued by the long-running Station vs. Dotty’s rivalry: “[Owner Craig Estey] goes round and round, saying he’ll do whatever to follow the law, but he never does. He’s like the Music Man, and there’s trouble in River City.” Considering the disastrous Station bankruptcy, Sloan ought to think twice about invoking trouble in River City.
Sisolak colleague Chris Giunchigliani at least sees things from the Dotty’s perspective, saying, “It’s the ugly side of Nevada gaming politics. If you are an entrepreneur who becomes too successful, you will be perceived as a threat. And powerful interests will find a way to regulate you out of business.” Amen.
