Bloomberry loses case vs ex-Solaire manager

The Singaporean High Court dismissed a petition filed by the Bloomberry group against casino management firm Global Gaming Philippines LLC (GGAM), which was accused of committing fraud and misrepresentation leading to its ouster as steward of Solaire Resort Manila in 2013.

This effectively upheld a 2016 ruling by the Singaporean Arbitration Tribunal, which declared the ouster wrongful while at the same time affirmed GGAM’s claim to an 8.7-percent stake in Solaire Resort owner and developer Bloomberry Resorts Corp.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Monday, Bloomberry said its subsidiaries Sureste Properties Inc. (SPI) and Bloomberry Resorts & Hotels Inc. (BRHI) received a decision from the Singapore High Court dated last Jan. 3 dismissing their petition opposing the partial award issued by the Singapore Arbitration Tribunal dated Sept. 20, 2016.

The Bloomberry units intend to appeal the ruling, with focus on the “flaws and the misappreciation of the evidence in the decision,” the disclosure said. SPI and BRHI have until Feb. 3, 2020 to appeal the ruling of the High Court, which is the lower tier of Singapore’s Supreme Court.

SPI and BRHI earlier invoked the US Department of Justice’s case against Las Vegas Sands involving executives William Weidner and Eric Chiu.

In 2016, Las Vegas Sands paid the US government $9 million in penalties for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) after failing to properly authorize or document millions of dollars in payments to a consultant that facilitated business in China and Macao. Weidner is GGAM chair and CEO while Chiu is GGAM president for Asia.

SPI and BRHI had characterized the FCPA findings as “new evidence” of GGAM’s alleged procedural fraud, arguing that this should be a legal ground for setting aside the partial award issued by the arbitration court in 2016.

In its Jan. 3 ruling, however, Singapore’s High Court said the FCPA findings “do not constitute strong and cogent evidence of any species of fraud” against GGAM.

In a related development in September 2019, the Singapore arbitration court also issued a final award favoring GGAM. Bloomberry was ordered to pay a sum of $296 million to GGAM.

The tribunal also affirmed GGAM’s ownership of and right to sell 921.18 million shares, equivalent to an 8.7-percent stake, in Bloomberry Resorts Corp.

This final award is the subject of a separate pending case by SPI and BRHI, according to the Bloomberry disclosure.–Doris Dumlao-Abadilla