Caesars gets nuked; Jerry Brown gets spanked

“It’s the ultimate nuclear option to try to go after debtors’ counsel.” That’s what Seton Hall University boffin Stephen Lubben says Caesars Palace fireworksof junior bondholders’ latest ploy in their knock-down, drag-out fight with Caesars Entertainment. They’re accusing law firm Kirkland & Ellis — which has already racked up $35 million worth of billable hours on the case (one Kirkland lawyer is making $1,335 an hour) — of a conflict of interest. “I would suspect that [law firm] Jones Day wouldn’t go down this road lightly,” added Lubben.

The road in dispute is whether Kirkland & Ellis was in fact acting objectively when it communicated with Caesars’ board — including Apollo Management and Texas Pacific Group — about restructuring advice it gave to bankrupt Caesars Entertainment Operating Group. Kirkland should have, junior bondholders argued, worked to claw back potentially fraudulent asset transfers that reduced the value of CEOC.  Saying that its work is CAESARS-ENTERTAINMENT-LOGO“unimpeachable,” Kirkland & Ellis further asserted, “remains ready, willing, and able to sue [Caesars Entertainment], its sponsors and their principals to recover the transferred assets should a consensual plan prove unworkable.”

In another development, junior debtholders like Appaloosa Management spat out a settlement offer from Caesars like rancid food. Caesars had offered a blanket settlement of $1.5 billion in return from immunity for being sued for fraudulent asset transfers — which sure sounds like an admission of guilt (or a weak case) to me. According to the Wall Street Journal, dissident creditors dismissed the offer as “unfair.”

* If you think the slots at your usual casino are tight, be glad you’re not playing in Greece. The government, as part of its austerity regime — and to defuse an unpopular, 23% value-added tax on private education — is placing a 5 Euro-cent on some wagers made in the country. It must be pretty galling to be taxed for the privilege of gambling. Greece … where the misery never stops.

* A federal judge effectively threw out Proposition 48 and ordered California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) back to the negotiating table with the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians, to restart talks on a gaming compact. The Mono Indians are seeking to Brownbuild a casino on 305 acres being held in trust outside Madera. Accusing Brown of acting “in bad faith,” U.S. District Court Judge Anthony W. Ishii gave him two months to finalize the compact — 11 years in the making — lest the court appoint a mediator.

The Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians is but one of several tribes that campaigned against the Mono Indians, warning of impending economic harm, but Ishii wrote, “competition alone is insufficient to determine that construction of the facility would result in a detrimental impact to the Picayune tribe.” The fight isn’t over. “The bigger picture for us is that if the state is going to allow ‘off-reservation gaming,’ they should allow it for everybody,” said Table Mountain Rancheria spokesman Dan Casas.

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