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.
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.
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.)
We're not quite sure what to make of these two "When Hotel Managers Attack" stories yet, so we'll just deliver what TMZ and Page Six report to be the, uh, facts.
Zachery Ty Bryan (a.k.a. Brad Taylor from Home Improvement) was staying at a Choice Hotels property in San Diego in April. He left the hotel to grab a Gatorade, and when he came back, the hotel allegedly refused to let him upstairs because the room wasn't in his name. Okay. Fine. But then:
Bryan's lawyer claims Zach tried explaining his wife was in the room, but the hotel refused to call her. He claims an off-duty manager, who was not involved in the initial argument, came out of nowhere and tasered Zach in the neck.
More hotel lawsuits happening this week. This time The Westin Bonaventure in downtown LA is suing crazy Phil Spector for stiffing them out of more than a $100,000.
TMZ, getting back to celebrity justice basics, reports:
In the suit, filed today in L.A. County Superior Court, the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites says they reserved rooms for the music producer's lawyers and expert witnesses during the trial. After seven months of trial, the hotel alleges, Spector had racked up a bill to the tune of more than $104,000.
Apparently, Spector didn't pay the bill because he was hoping to get some sort of steep discount. Now the hotel has sued Spector, his wife and his agent. Looks like Spector will have to find some new digs before his second trial begins in September. The first trial in which he stood accused of killing Lana Clarkson ended in a mistrial.
The Hearst Corporation is suing the developers of a resort, casino and beach club in Las Vegas. You may ask: whatever could the Hearsties, a magazine publishing company, want to sue the developer for? Turns out the resort's name is going to be The Cosmopolitan, and that's the name of one of Hearst's biggest publications. Women's Wear Daily reports:
The Hearst suit alleges the defendants are seeking to trade off of the publisher's "famous, long-established family of marks...and [the defendant] has stated its intention to use those marks in connection with goods and services that are the same as or related to the goods and services to which the public associates the marks with [Hearst Communications Inc.]."
Unless the resort plans on having in-room sex quizzes, 37 ways to get a bikini body in three weeks, and embarrassing moments tell-all as part of its resort services and amenities, we kinda think this lawsuit is without merit. And besides there's like a ton of other Cosmopolitan hotels out there already. Now if the resort wants to publish its own magazine called Cosmopolitan, then we've got a problem.
The resort is on track to open in late 2009 and will feature over 2,200 condo-hotel units, 800 hotel rooms under the Grand Hyatt flag, retail and restaurant space and a beach club. Hmmm...then again, 37 ways to get a bikini body in three weeks might actually be a good hotel service to have here.
We sure hate it when we check-out of a hotel and with taxes, parking, resort fees, wireless internet rates and more taxes, the room rate we found on the internet seems to have doubled. Well, one man was so ticked off by these extra charges, he's decided to sue.
James Schulevitz has hired Gordon Tilden law firm in Seattle to represent him (and hopefully others) in a class-action lawsuit against Starwood Hotels. Schulevitz was apparently told by one Starwood Hotelthat gratuities for the bellmen and for housekeeping were added onto his bill, rather than left to his own discretion.
The lawsuit seeks certification of a nationwide class of consumers from whom Starwood collected mandatory "Bell Gratuity" charges or mandatory "Housekeeping Gratuity" charges, in addition to the quoted rate for a room at certain Starwood hotels.
The lawsuit alleges that Starwood breached its lodging contracts with its guests by imposing these additional mandatory charges above and beyond the per-night room rate agreed upon at the time of reservation.
The lawsuit also alleges that Starwood violated consumer protection laws and was unjustly enriched by engaging in this alleged practice.
Now the law firm is looking for other folks who have stayed at a Starwood hotel and were charged and paid either a "Bell Gratuity" or "Housekeeping Gratuity" along with their quoted room rate.
Sound off in our comments section below if you've been hit with mandatory gratuities or if you think this lawsuit is just a big waste of time.
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by Jenna
