Bloomberry Resorts has to shell out $296 million to cover the termination of a management services agreement it had with a gambling operator, but it really doesn’t want to. The judgment was passed down through arbitration as the dispute lingers in Singapore and the Philippines-based casino operator has balked at the award, asserting that it is appealing the decision with the Singapore High Court.
The company previously had an agreement with Global Gaming Philippines, LLC, a subsidiary of U.S.-based Global Gaming Asset Management LLC (GGAM), that had involved two Bloomberry units, Sureste Properties and Bloomberry Resorts & Hotels, Inc. That arrangement was put in place in 2012 and was designed to focus on operations at the Solaire Resort and Casino in Manila.
Only a year later, though, Bloomberry canceled the partnership, alleging “failure of discussions” and “material breach” on the part of the GGAM subsidiary. However, Global Gaming Philippines fought the decision and, in 2016, an arbitration panel in Singapore sided with the company, asserting that Bloomberry had been wrong to terminate the contract.
Bloomberry said in a filing with the Philippine Stock Exchange last week that it is appealing the decision, explaining, “On November 5, 2019, Bloomberry Resorts & Hotels and Sureste filed in the Singapore High Court an application to set aside the final award on the grounds of fraud and fraudulent concealment among others. This case is pending in Singapore.”
It added that the arbitration panel’s decision “may be enforced in the Philippines only through an order of a Philippine court of proper jurisdiction, after appropriate proceedings taking into account applicable Philippine law and public policy.” That begs the question, why was it even sent to arbitration in Singapore in the first place, if Bloomberry wasn’t willing to accept the decision? According to previous reports on the saga, the arbitration panel was designed to follow laws created by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law and even used Philippine law as the basis for its decision-making process.
The company said in a filing two weeks ago, “This petition arose from the fraudulent concealment and misrepresentations by Global Gaming Philippines, which are apparent in light of the outcome of two U.S. federal investigations regarding violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act involving two of Global Gaming Philippines’s four executives during their time at Las Vegas Sands. If Singapore courts decide that petition in favour of [Bloomberry Resorts], the partial award on liability, which is a predicate for the final award on remedies, will be vacated.”
