Newly appointed Wynn Resorts Chairman Phil Satre is expected to take the point in trying to persuade the Massachusetts Gaming Commission that the company is a different one from the one that founder and former CEO Steve Wynn resigned from and divested all interests from earlier this year.
The point he will make is that the company should be allowed to keep its license to operate the Encore Boston Harbor, that is expected to be ready for operation by June of next year.
Wynn’s ex-wife Elaine Wynn recruited Satre, a 69-year-old veteran of the casino industry, who has been chairman and chief executive officer of Harrah’s, chairman of IGT, and president of the National Center for Responsible Gaming.
Although Steve Wynn sold all his shares in the company, his ex-wife is now its largest shareholder.
At first company officials and board members were reluctant, because it had fought Wynn’s ex-wife in court for seven years. But after the company reached a settlement with Elaine Wynn, Satre joined the board.
He told Commonwealth Magazine: “It’s a different way of joining a board. Believe me, I’ve been on about 12 boards and never have I gone on the board of a company in such a fashion.”
Now that his board is convinced, Satre will turn his attention to the MGC to argue that the company should keep its license because it no longer has anyone on board who the commission might consider unsuitable.
It will still get a casino designed by Wynn, an acknowledged genius in casino design, but without Wynn himself. “What I’m saying is that we can separate Steve from the company and still accomplish everything we promised here,” he said.
Meanwhile the MGC held a closed session last week to discuss its legal strategy against the lawsuit Steve Wynn filed to prevent its investigators from using information it obtained from attorneys who used to represent Wynn.
This is delaying the suitability hearing on the Wynn license that the panel had planned to hold this month.
Wynn is trying to block release of the investigative report that relies on some documents that Wynn claims are protected by attorney client privilege, that includes information from a six year lawsuit between Wynn and a former business partner.
If Wynn’s license is ever revoked, the Mohegan Sun, which lost its bid for the license, is ready to step in. It has said it is willing to buy the $2.5 billion casino.
The tribe released a statement to the Boston Herald last week: “If that determination finds Wynn Resorts unsuitable to hold a gaming license in Massachusetts, Mohegan Sun is prepared to participate in a process that would assign that license to another operator — and enter into negotiations with the appropriate parties to acquire the facility under construction in Everett.” The tribe added, “Mohegan Sun has always believed it is the best choice as gaming operator and license holder for a Region A resort casino, and will be committed to opening the Everett facility in a timely manner should it get the opportunity.”
The tribe has met with some neighboring communities to stipulate that it would honor any surrounding community agreements that Wynn negotiated.
Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria rejects that notion, saying the city’s agreement with Wynn gives it the right to approve or reject any sale. The mayor declared: “Mohegan Sun is not welcome to operate a casino in the City of Everett. We made a deal with Wynn Resorts to operate a 5-star international destination resort and I will never accept anything less — certainly not a gaming parlor that would be used to protect their interests in Connecticut at the expense of our community and residents,”
DeMaria added, “Wynn Resorts’ partnership with Everett and the Commonwealth runs far deeper than a building with slot machines.”
The tribe is embroiled in a lawsuit with the Massachusetts Gaming Commission over its decision to award the casino license to Wynn instead of the tribe.
A Wynn spokesman declined to comment on the tribe’s offer, but inserted a dig in the non-comment: “We’re not going to comment on such a self-serving proposition,” said spokesman Greg John.
Meanwhile, lawsuits continue to haunt Wynn Resorts.
A former Wynn Resorts shareholder is suing the company, its founder Steve Wynn and several current and former executives and directors charging them with breaching their fiduciary duties in connection with the casino tycoon’s alleged history as a sexual predator.
Nevada resident Robert Bruce Bannister complaint, filed in Clark County District Court, says in part that Wynn “knowingly and intentionally breached his fiduciary duties by engaging in a pattern of sexual harassment and abuse and actively concealing such misconduct in violation of the company’s policies and codes as well as various laws and regulations.”
As for the current and former members of the board of directors also named as defendants, they “knowingly, intentionally and fraudulently violated and breached their fiduciary duties of good faith, fair dealing, loyalty, due care, candor and oversight as a result of the misconduct,” the complaint says.
In addition to Wynn Resorts and Wynn, the suit targets Matt Maddox, who was named CEO after Wynn resigned the post in disgrace in February, former General Counsel Kim Sinatra, a longtime Wynn confidante who resigned in June, four current directors—Jay Johnson, Pat Mulroy, Clark Randt and Alvin Shoemaker—and ex-directors John Hagenbuch, Ray Irani, former Nevada Governor Bob Miller, Edward Virtue and D. Boone Wayson.
“Defendants did nothing to protect the company and instead took actions to protect and insulate Steve Wynn from any consequences or repercussions rather than investigating his suitability under the company’s articles of incorporation,” the complaint states.
Bannister is seeking an award of damages, plus punitive damages against Steve Wynn in excess of $15,000, and all expenses.
The suit stems from a now-celebrated report that appeared in January in The Wall Street Journal containing testimony from a number of women formerly employed at the company’s spas and salons that Wynn pressured them to perform sexual favors. Among the accusers was a former Wynn Las Vegas manicurist whom Wynn paid $7.5 million in an off-the-books settlement that came to light only years later in litigation between Wynn and his ex-wife, Elaine Wynn, for control of her sizable shareholding in the company.
Several other news reports followed containing allegations that included a claim by a woman that Wynn raped her and got her pregnant and another from a former employee who said she was forced out of her job for refusing sex with the billionaire.
Wynn has denied the accusations, but he quit as chairman and CEO the month after the Journal report appeared and later severed his ties with the Wynn Resorts by selling all his stock.
The company has been hit with several lawsuits similar to Bannister’s, notably by two pension funds in Massachusetts, where the company’s license to build a billion-dollar resort outside Boston is the subject of an intensive investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations by the state Gaming Commission. The $7.5 million settlement is reported to be a key focus of that probe because it was never disclosed during the initial hearings that led to Wynn being awarded a license as head of Wynn Resorts.
Wynn, meanwhile, has filed a six-count lawsuit against commission investigator Karen Wells to block the release of her findings. His suit claims her report relies on privileged attorney-client communications stemming from the company’s protracted litigation against Wynn’s former business partner and Wynn Resorts co-founder Kazuo Okada.
A new suitability hearing on the company’s license has been placed on hold while the commission decides on a response to the suit.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board also is investigating the allegations.
MGM Springfield
MGM Springfield’s President Michael Mathis is trying to persuading the casino’s security guards to reject a union vote. He calls the union organizers “strangers.”
Mathis wrote the security guards last week: “Let’s tell this union to go away so we can continue to work on our issues. I promise you that my entire management team and I are committed to doing so.”
The move to unionize the 200 or so security guards who are largely military veterans and former police and correctional officers, materialized after promised pay raises never happened.
Kevin Frazier, an MGM security officer, told the Republican that guards were promised $18/hour after 90s days plus an extra $1 if they got special training. They turned to the Law Enforcement Officers Security Union, which has organized security workers across the East Coast.
LEOSU Organizing Director Steve Maritas said, “Originally they were saying they never said it. Then they told these guys they did say it, and they apologized. It’s a shame what’s happening. It’s really a shame.”
Maritas accuses the company of hold “union busting meetings,” something that a spokesman for MGM says were actually educational sessions so that the employees would know what unionization means.
Mathis said in a statement: “We believe in the right to join or refrain from joining a union. We are proud of the partnerships we have forged, continuously leveraging our relationships with community-based organizations to promote and assist with job placement and workforce development. It is important for employees to make an informed decision, based on factual information, exercising their right in a secret ballot election.”
But in a letter to the security officers Mathis wrote: “For MGM Springfield to continue to be successful, we need to work together. I don’t know who the various outside union organizers are from LEOSU, but I do know they are strangers. They weren’t here in 2012 and 2013 when a small group of Springfield volunteers and I knocked on doors asking the residents of the city for their vote.”
Acknowledging that the company “did not always hear the voice” of the officers,” Mathis added, “The fact that some of you believe you have to pay a union from your hard-earned paychecks to give you a voice disheartens me. I commit to doing a better job of not just hearing you, but truly listening, so that you know that you do have a voice in our organization.”
Maritas says the company is concerned about union organizing because they could force the casino to close.
Maritas is a union organizer known for using “colorful labor tactics,” as the Republican described them.
Maritas defended his tactics. “We do informational pickets. Do we use homeless people to picket? We have to. It’s a tactic used by the union. To me, when you’re beating down workers, that’s terrorism.”
