Global Gaming Suing Billionaire Casino Owner Enrique Razon for $296.6 Million Arbitration Award

Global Gaming Philippines pursues $296.6M arbitration award against Razon's Solaire Resort.

Global Gaming Philippines filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan on Monday in an effort to recover a $296.6 million arbitration award against Filipino billionaire Enrique Razon, owner of the Solaire Resort and Casino in Manila.

The award was related to Solaire’s 2013 decision to end Global Gaming Asset Management’s (GGAM) management contract for the casino destination over what Razon’s Bloomberry Resorts Corp. called “the material breach of the management services agreement by GGAM.”

Bloomberry Accuses GGAM of Failing to Perform Duties at Solaire

Bloomberry paid GGAM $175,000 per month for technical services related to the design, planning, and construction of Solaire, along with services related to employee recruitment. However, Bloomberry terminated the partnership only six months after opening the resort.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Bloomberry alleged that GGAM had “not spent any material time in attending to the management of Solaire and has failed to perform its obligations and deliverables under the management services agreement.”

GGAM disputed that accounting of events, saying it was Bloomberry that was in the wrong.

“Bloomberry Resorts Corporation’s assertions regarding GGAM’s performance of its obligations under the Management Services Agreement have no factual or legal validity,” GGAM told AFP in a statement. “Bloomberry has materially breached that agreement and GGAM is pursuing its rights under that contract in arbitration in Singapore.”

While the process of unwinding the dispute took over a decade to complete, it appeared to come to an end in April, when Bloomberg said it had completed the purchase of $290.5 million worth of its own shares from GGAM as a part of the agreement. The settlement included cases in Nevada, Singapore, and the Philippines.

GGAM: Razon Hiding Assets in US Shell Companies

However, Global Gaming now says that Razon has avoided paying the arbitration award that was handed down by a panel in Singapore. It alleges that the billionaire has used “a vast network of shell companies” in the United States in order to hide his holdings, diverting assets from the Philippines to benefit himself and his family.

Razon, a 64-year-old billionaire from Manila, is the chairman and CO of International Container Terminal Services, a port-handling giant based out of the Philippines, and also has ownership of several other major companies.

That also includes Bloomberry, which began development of the Solaire Resort in 2010. The $1.2 billion resort includes two 17-story hotels, more than 1,600 slot machines, and a 1,700-seat theater. It was the first casino to be built in Entertainment City, the integrated resort complex in Bay City, Manila.

Global Gaming Asset Management, which is owned by financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald and a group of former Las Vegas Sands executives, is a services company that helps manage casino resorts worldwide.