Caesars retirement fund settlement would be OK’d by court on remand

By Caroline Salls

Pittsburgh, April 10 – Caesars Entertainment Operating Co., Inc.’s (CEOC) motion for court approval of a settlement with parent Caesars Entertainment Corp. and several National Retirement Fund parties would be approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois if the U.S. district court sends the matter back to the lower court for approval, according to a Monday indicative order.

The bankruptcy court said it cannot rule directly on the settlement motion at this time because it deals with an appeal pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and approving the agreement with the appeal pending would render the settlement “null and void.”

U.S. bankruptcy judge A. Benjamin Goldgar ordered the parties to file joint status reports with the New York courts as soon as possible notifying them of the pending settlement motion.

As previously reported, the proposed settlement “resolves a multiparty, multi-jurisdictional dispute concerning hundreds of millions of dollars in disputed withdrawal liability payments that has been pending for more than two years.”

According to the motion filed with the bankruptcy court, under the settlement, Caesars employers will be retroactively restored to the legacy plan of the National Retirement Fund as of the date of their expulsion from that plan.

In addition, the fund will withdraw its claim for more than $360 million of withdrawal liability against each of the CEOC debtors, other Caesars parties, and each member of a controlled group.

The fund parties also agreed not to file claims against released Caesars parties related to the creation of a real estate investment trust or the other transactions included in CEOC’s plan of reorganization.

CEOC said the settlement does not require it to make any additional payments other than the debtor employers’ continued contributions to the fund as required under their collective bargaining agreements.

All other payments to the fund under the settlement will be made by the parent company, which will pay less now than may otherwise be due if it was required to catch up on missed withdrawal liability payments.

A hearing is scheduled for May 17.

Caesars is a Las Vegas-based casino-entertainment company that filed for bankruptcy on Jan. 15, 2015. The Chapter 11 case number is 15-01145.

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