Hard Rock Promises To Sue Greek Government Over Airport Casino Tender

It has been known that the Greek government plans to build a whole new city complex on the former Helliniko Airport place. They have opened tender in order to attract investors to propose the most interesting ideas and the design for the huge complex, which would actually become the city size project.

As far as it seems the job did not go as good as promised with the Greek government, as the two major US casino operators, that have also been taking part in the tender, Mohegan Gaming, and Hard Rock Internations are threatening to sue the Greek government over a delay to the awarding of a casino license for Hellinikon Airport. 

The Project of an $8.8 Billion

The project is part of an $8.8 billion redevelopment plan for the long-abandoned airport south of Athens and the biggest foreign investment in Greece for a decade.

As for the project to be launched soon, the two casino operators became really frustrated by the delay from the Greek government. This has been ascribed to be a mistake with the paperwork.

Reportedly, one of the two bidders — the tender committee initially declined to say which — submitted a letter of guarantee in its application that fell short of official requirements.

Despite the government’s eagerness to get the long-delayed project off the ground, there are fears the mistake could add weeks to the process, which would finally imply the deadline changes and possible budget changes. Within this fact, the committee gives the candidates time to make clarifications to their applications. Authorities had hoped to announce the winner this month, though, considering the ongoing unfinished process of the paperwork, it seems to take slightly more time than expected.

Hard Rock’s Hard Mistake 

It was reported this week that the Hard Rock was a culpThis week BusinessDaily.gr reported that Hard Rock was the offender and that the submission error could lead to the operator being disqualified from the whole process.

It is well known that the self-defense work the best in that kind of situation, and consequently Hard Rick addressed that exact tool, with threatening legal action in the event of its exclusion.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis who is the Prime Minister of Greece does not seem to be happy about the news as his plan was to begin the work right before the end of the year. Due to the legal framework, the construction of the airports can not be started before the casino developer is chosen. Any additional legal action will drag on the project for months.

Caesars and Getting Warrant

Hellenikon — or Ellinkon — was closed in 2001 following the construction of Athens International Airport, and has been banned ever since. For that time in Greece was the law according to which they were against foreign companies investing in Greece. Due to this fact, the project was stopped for four years.

This led Caesars Entertainment and Genting Malaysia to drop out of the race, leaving Mohegan and Hard Rock to emerge as the only remaining competitors. Both companies have finally submitted official bids in October.

Hard Rock has said it will commit $1.1 billion to the project, promising to create 3,000 construction jobs and 1,600 permanent positions. The details of the finer financial points of Mohegan’s offer have not yet been revealed, but the company has partnered with Greek industrial firm GEK Terna on the bid.

There is a requirement for the winning casino developer to provide a certain amount of slot machines as well as table games. To be more specific there should be at least 1200 slot machines and 120 table games. To take the numbers into consideration the complex should be quite big and the venue should be a luxurious type. The whole place should represent a good entertaining area will a lot of facilities both for locals and tourists. The project is also supposed to be the best investment to the tourism of the country and should attract thousands of tourists to the new Hellinikon.