%1

Caesars Entertainment Operating Co., one of America’s biggest gaming companies, will pay more than $160 million to a half-dozen firms for their services during its nearly three-year stay in chapter 11 that ended in October, the American Lawyer reported. The final bills, made available in a summary court filing on Tuesday, still require approval from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Goldgar of the Northern District of Illinois. The payments to outside firms have slowed within the past year as the bankruptcy drew to a close, as previously reported by the American Lawyer. The biggest winner in the bankruptcy that shed roughly $10 billion in Caesars’ corporate debt is Kirkland & Ellis, which billed for $76.9 million in fees in its role as lead counsel to the company. Winston & Strawn, which last year wrapped up its work as legal counsel for examiner Richard Davis, billed a total of $30.6 million. Davis, a former Weil, Gotshal & Manges partner and member of the Watergate Special Prosecution, was investigating whether the parent company of Caesars stripped the operating company of profitable assets before it filed for bankruptcy. That report said Caesars could be liable for up to $5 billion in damages for the reshuffling, although a deal was struck to avoid litigation on that front. Proskauer Rose billed $28.7 million in legal fees representing a committee of unsecured creditors. Jones Day billed another $25.1 million for its work on behalf of a group of second-lien junior bondholders.

Baha Mar's sale to Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (CTFE) was completed by the December 1 closing deadline, the Bahamas Tribune reported. Meeting the December 1 deadline was critical, as failure to hit it would have seen the tax breaks and incentives — originally granted by the former Christie administration to the China Export-Import Bank — fall away. The previously-sealed 'Heads of Terms' for Baha Mar's construction completion, disclosed earlier this year, revealed that CTFE's purchase closing deadline had been extended to December 1, 2017, from November 22, 2017. This was done via a letter signed by Creswell Sturrup, then-permanent secretary in the Prime Minister's Office, which was attached as an amendment to the 'Heads of Terms.'

The sale of defaulting Mountain West hotels in Clarksburg and Elkins, W.Va., will continue, following an evidentiary hearing yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, the West Virginia Metro News reported. “There is no ground that I can find to stop the bankruptcy sale because there is no factor of irreputable harm,” U.S. District Judge Irene Keeley ruled after over two hours of testimony. Mountain West owes $17 million in outstanding debt for two hotels to the lender, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes to state and local governments. The case, which was originally filed on May 20, diverted into U.S. bankruptcy court and has since been kicked out after Mountain West failed to meet deadlines for financial documentation.

A hotel and casino in the western part of South Dakota has filed for bankruptcy protection just two months after actor-director Kevin Costner shuttered the doors on his area casino, the Associated Press reported. The Celebrity Hotel and Casino filed documents seeking protection from creditors last week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of South Dakota. The hotel is owned by Rolling Hills Farms Investments Inc. The Celebrity isn't in danger of imminent closure and the owners are going through a period of reorganization, said Ken Gienger, who has managed the property since 1998. Court documents show the hotel-casino had total assets of nearly $6.4 million, with more than $3.5 million owed on two loans from First Interstate Bank.