Trump Entertainment Resorts may have acquiesced to Donald Trump’s demand to take his name off of the now defunct Trump Plaza, but the company isn’t willing to do the same to its other casino, the Trump Taj Mahal. In its legal filing to federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, Trump Entertainment indicated that it drew the line on taking down Trump’s name on the Tah Mahal, arguing that Trump’s litigation against the company was “baseless and value-destructive” and doing so would put unnecessary distraction on the casino’s already depressing current state of affairs.
“The debtors face many challenges, and the last thing these chapter 11 cases can afford is the significant expense, distraction and uncertainty of state court litigation over whether the debtors can preserve the very name under which they do business,” the company said in its filing.
The casino was gifted with a new set of downs late last week when a bankruptcy judge agreed to junk its contract with the UNITE-HERE union, freeing it up to pursue state aid to keep it from closing its doors this November. Billionaire Carl Icahn still holds most of the Trump Taj Mahal’s $286 million in debt, although he has been firm in his stance that the casino still needs financial assistance from the state to keep the casino running.
These are the issues Trump Entertainment are referring to but the Trumps aren’t exactly buying it. “The company has been in default of the standards for both the Plaza and at the Taj as well,” Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, told reporters earlier this week. “They had a similar benchmark, and they did not live up to the standards we agreed to. Both the standards were not met.”
According to their lawsuit, the Trumps hired a quality control expert to evaluate the two casinos. The expert reportedly gave the establishments failing grades, which, in the family’s eyes, invalidates the licensing agreement it had with Trump Entertainment Resorts.
Yet Trump Entertainment remains defiant, arguing that the “quality control expert” didn’t flunk the Taj Mahal and that the Trump family has no “shred of evidence” indicating that the casinos had tainted the family’s name and kept it from earning money from its other business endeavors.
