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Hilton's Denizen Employees Could Face Criminal Charges
The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Hilton Hotels and its executives accused of stealing proprietary W Hotel information to create their now dead-in-the-water hotel brand Denizen Hotels, could face criminal charges.
The grand jury is part of a six-month-old Justice Department probe into allegations that Hilton, which is owned by private-equity firm Blackstone Group, used trade secrets taken by former Starwood executives, who defected to Hilton last year, to develop its own luxury brand to compete with Starwood's successful W chain.
About 30 Hilton employees and executives have either been fired or placed on leave. Ross Klein, the former president of Starwood Hotels who defected to Hilton and was in charge of the Denizen development, was initially place on paid leave with Hilton. However, he was recently replaced by John Vanderslice as Hotels magazine reported last month.
But there is a chance that even if Hilton as a corporation is not criminally charged, the individual employees could be prosecuted themselves.
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Waldorf-Astoria Sarasota Mucked Up By Lawsuit
Uh oh. Hope you didn’t think the economy’s death grip on the hotel industry had loosened. Seems the bottom has dropped out from under the highly anticipated Waldorf-Astoria Sarasota.
The developers funding the massive project are in an ugly feud, with Gary Moyer suing his former business partner, the “much younger and wealthier” Zeb Portonova, reports the Sarasota Herald Tribune.
Back in early 2008, we reported the announcement for the coming hotel project, which was set to be a 225-room hotel featuring 38,000 square feet of meeting space, signature restaurants, a roof-top pool, and a swank spa. Delivery was expected in late 2010, so the project had sort of fallen off our radar. The Herald Tribune fills us in on the ugliness that has transpired since then:
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The Hard Rock and Morgans Hotel Group Are Named in Wrongful Death Lawsuit
The Las Vegas Sun reported yesterday that the family of Michelle Hatchel, who died of a drug overdose in 2007 in the Vegas condo of Ed Scheetz, the former CEO of Morgans Hotel Group, have not only filed a lawsuit against Scheetz but have also named The Hard Rock Hotel and Morgans as defendants.
Hatchel had been living and partying with him at his Vegas residence in the weeks before her death--an overdose of oxycontin and cocaine--and Scheetz referred to her as his "girlfriend" in the 911 call. Scheetz has never been criminally charged for any wrongdoing in Hatchel's death. However, he has already settled a wrongful death suit with Hatchel's father for a "substantial sum."
This latest lawsuit has been filed on behalf of Hatchel's mother grandmother, brother and aunt. The new allegations they make against Scheetz are very shocking and they reveal the world of hard-core partying, drugs and sex that he was into during his time in Vegas. And that's where the Hard Rock comes in.
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Another Reason to Avoid the In-Room Coffee Maker
Quite often, hotel guests stay away from the in-room coffee because it either tastes like crap, the machine is difficult to figure out or worse yet, it costs money. But now there could be another reason to avoid the in-room coffee machines--they could really mess your hand up. From the NY Post:
Former Columbia University researcher Kristopher Karnauskas yesterday filed a $10 million suit against an Arizona hotel, claiming its percolator shattered in his hand, hurting him so badly he couldn't deliver a speech on global warming.
And what's more, the 27-year-old climate scientist claims he can no longer play his trumpet. His conflict with the carafe took place in January at a Phoenix Marriott, where he'd planned to deliver a speech on "The Response of the Equatorial Pacific Ocean to Global Warming."
A shard of glass severed a hand tendon, he said.
Thankfully, there's a new trend on the horizon in hotels to use Keurigs or other single-cup coffee makers in the rooms (see the Westin's Wakeup coffee maker) meaning we don't have to do deal with any glass percolators. But it will take a while for the big brands to get these installed in all of their rooms. Until then, you might be better off dragging yourself downstairs for a cup of coffee.
[Photo: LakersFan/TripAdvisor]
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WTF: NYLO vs. Wynn Re: XS
Okay, kiddies. Can't we all agree that suing each other over the gimmicky use of two consonants is a little...excessive? Or should we say "XS-ive"?
According to local Las Vegas news station KVBC, Wynn Resorts filed a lawsuit on Monday in U.S. District Court against NYLO Hotels. The dispute? Who has the rights to "XS." Yes, really.
Reportedly, NYLO had "asserted rights" to the trademark "XS" — perhaps a marketing tie-in for their yet-to-happen XP brand? — and had "offered to let Wynn pay a licensing fee to use the name for the club at Encore." How generous of them! The suit Wynn is filing against NYLO says its use of "XS" doesn't infringe on anyone's rights.
We're not going to take anyone's side here, but we only have this to add: let's not forget that neither one of these hotel companies had this cutesy "XS" idea first. Just saying.
Tags: Denizen Hotels / Industry News / Hilton Hotels / Hotel Lawsuits / Starwood Hotels / → All Tags
Hilton and Starwood to Settle Denizen Dispute Out of Court?
Unsurprisingly, reports are coming in that Hilton is doing what they can to settle their dispute (otherwise known as The Great Denizen Disaster) with Starwood out of court — because, obviously, they're trying to keep the damage to their already-pretty-soiled reputation to a minimum.
In more official words, Travel Daily News printed:
Hilton Hotels is seeking a negotiated settlement in its corporate espionage case with Starwood rather than seeing the legal spat battle between two of the industry’s fiercest competitors aired in public, thereby avoiding further humiliation of its botched entry into the lifestyle hotel sector.
Uh, in cased you missed all these shenanigans (watch the drama unfold here): Starwood filed a complaint in federal court in New York claiming two former Starwood executives hired by Hilton — Ross Klein and Amar Lalvani — had stolen information about the W hotel brand to develop Hilton's Denizen luxury-lifestyle hotel concept. It was a pretty clear case of corporate espionage, and last we heard, all development of Denizen was suspended until things could get moving with this legal battle.
Um, just a guess, but this could mean Denizen is probably dunzo, right? Maybe the biggest priorities for Hilton are just minimizing and repairing the damage to the company's reputation and moving on?
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Memo to Four Seasons Aviara: Take It to Judge Judy
This Four Seasons Aviara drama is totally off-the-charts. We mentioned this on Monday but wanted to let it unfold before we discussed it again, and, um, unfold it did: what was previously a fairly straightforward dispute between the owners of the San Diego property (a group of investors) and its management (Four Seasons) has turned into — to the public — a battle of unusually-candid and strongly-worded press releases that, newsflash, makes nobody look good here.
From what we understand, the resort wasn't making enough money so the owners wanted Four Seasons out and some new management in. This happens in the hotel industry. But apparently, the Four Seasons wasn't getting outta there without a fight — and the dispute escalated.
Things appeared to be business as usual for Four Seasons — we were able to get to the payment stages to make a rezzie both online and on the phone — but that, apparently, should not have been the case.
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Hilton's Legal Department Is Working Overtime These Days
Goodness. We were cruising for some news this morning, you know, checkin' out what's going on in and around the ol' hotel world. Not surprisingly, lots of headlines were about Hilton getting sued. We didn't think much of them until we realized that not all of those headlines were about Hilton getting sued over Denizen. Oy.
Hilton's legal department seems to be working overtime these days: now the massive hotel company is getting sued by a Northern Ireland company in a £10m case involving the Hilton Belfast. Goodness. From the Financial Times:
Ewart Properties, which owns 25 per cent of Belfast Hilton, the company set up to finance and build the hotel, claims it is owed unpaid dividends of £1m.
As a result of alleged breaches of the shareholder agreement and a related lease, Ewart claims it cannot reasonably be expected to remain as a shareholder and is seeking a court order requiring Hilton to buy its stake, valued by property experts at around £10m.
This one is (obvs) not as insane as the Denizen case, but we can't help but notice that times are definitely pretty tough for Hilton who, not one month ago, was kind of on top of the world after announcing two new brands, Home2 Suites and Denizen.
Tags: Denizen Hotels / Starwood Hotels / Hotel News / Hotel Lawsuits / W Hotels / Ross Klein / → All Tags
The Origin of Denizen: Hilton Should Have Gone With 'The Quinn'
The hotel world is in a tizzy today about the lawsuit that Starwood Hotels has filed against Hilton Hotels, Ross Klein, Amar Lalvani and their just-announced new hotel brand Denizen Hotels. Already folks are dividing themselves into two camps: Team Starwood and Team Denizen. We expect t-shirts from Cafe Press to be ready within the hour.
In reading today's article from the Wall Street Journal, which broke the news online last night, we get the rundown of all Starwood's major complaints which allege that Klein and Lalvani stole trade secrets, brand profiles and even other Starwood employees.
The allegations are shocking and scandalous and while we do believe that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, we can't help but wonder what would have happened if Hilton Hotels had just used the rumored name The Quinn in the first place.
That's because Starwood is alleging that the name Denizen Hotels actually comes from a concept called "zen den" which was to be implemented in W Hotels. Zinger. Ouch.
Now, hearing that the brand Denizen may have come from "zen den", it makes the name seem less bizarre and a little more sensible than "denizen of the world" which is what Denizen Hotels have been touting since its announcement. But stolen goods are never cool. What about just using the name The Quinn instead? We liked that better!
Tags: Hotel News / Jason Pomeranc / Thompson Hotels / Hotel Lawsuits / → All Tags
Breaking News :: Thompson Hotels' Emails Get Hacked
According to some recently-filed court documents that Cityfile obtained and posted today, Jason Pomeranc and co. are entrenched in a legal battle with an unidentified hacker who obtained confidential Thompson Hotels emails.
From what we understand, the individual--whose IP address was traced back to Silicon Valley--gained access to "one or more" Thompson employees' email accounts, and then forwarded sensitive correspondence and documents to a Rocketmail account that was meant to impersonate the email address of a PR/Communications exec at Thompson.
But it gets worse.
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Setai San Diego Not Related to The Setai in Miami Beach
Yesterday we told you that The Setai in Miami Beach was opening a property in San Diego called Setai San Diego. But guess what? That's totally wrong.
Yes, there is a property called Setai San Diego which will open in December but it has nothing to do with the Miami Beach property. Mad thanks to PatrickSW who tipped us off yesterday with this comment.
According to an article from January, The Setai Group, which created the Miami property, is not happy about the Setai San Diego.
In November, the Setai Group sued 5th Avenue Partners and its principal, Orange County developer Rebeil, alleging that the San Diego project is being falsely promoted as a Setai property under the name Setai San Diego.
To be fair, the 5th Avenue group did talk with the Setai group about creating a West Coast property for the Setai name. Developer Steve Rebeil supposedly even built the San Diego hotel to be up to par with Setai standards. But the deal went sour, in part to Rebeil's checkered legal past. Rebeil decided to go ahead anyways with the Setai name.
We think it's kinda crappy that this San Diego hotel is opening under the Setai name. That's like someone else opening a Thompson Hotel that's not from Jason Pomeranc and co.
In short, this will still be a luxury hotel but it is not related to the Miami Beach property. Sorry for the confusion.
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Plaza Hotel's Developers File Defamation Suit Against That Rich Russian Guy
We wrote last week about how the Plaza Hotel's developers were stung last week with a steep lawsuit by Andrei Vavilov, the Russian hedge fund manager not at all pleased with the conditions of his $53.3-million penthouse. This week, the Plaza bit back. That's right, a copy of a defamation lawsuit filed by El-Ad Properties against Vavilov just landed in our inbox.
El-Ad says Vavilov's anti-Plaza statements were made in a "sham lawsuit" that is "solely in an attempt to escape their unconditional obligation to purchase" his penthouse.
El-Ad further claims that Vavilov did not express dissatisfaction with the property until after his wife, Russian actress Maryana Tsaregradskaya, did a walk-through herself and deemed the property was "simply not large enough for her tastes." Turns out she wanted the "biggest apartment at The Plaza." (Hell, if we were married to Russia's former Deputy Finance Minister, we probably would too.)
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