Caesars Entertainment Corp. and its private-equity backers could be on the hook for up to $5.1 billion in potential damages over a series of corporate deals that a court-ordered examiner said led to a $18 billion bankruptcy protection filing by the casino company's operating unit, Reuters reported today. Richard Davis and a team of lawyers have spent a year probing whether Caesars, under the control of Apollo Global Management and TPG Capital, stripped away prime properties such as the LINQ Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas and left the company unable to pay a mountain of debt. "The simple answer to this question is 'yes,' " wrote Davis at the start of an 80-page summary of his non-binding investigation. The bankruptcy of Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. Inc. has pitted some of the biggest names in U.S. finance against each other in a year-long court battle. Davis, a former Watergate investigator, estimated potential damages for claims that he said would have a better than 50 percent chance of success in court ranged from $3.6 billion to $5.1 billion.
