|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
By: Dean Weiner
James Dolan, CEO and Executive Chairman of Madison Square Garden and owner of the sports teams the New York Rangers and the New York Knicks is close to settling allegations that he duped investors and spied on employees, while senior executives at his companies destroyed evidence of his scheme — all part of a scheme to pay the ballooning tab for an over-the-top construction project in the Las Vegas desert, according to an exclusive report by The New York Post.
Dolan,who has settled one lawsuit over the allegations and its nearing a deal to settle similar allegations in another, employed the hardball tactics as he pursued his single-minded vision to build the MSG Sphere — a Las Vegas movies-and-music mecca whose grand opening this fall with legendary rock group U2 got teased in a splashy Super Bowl ad in February. The construction tab for the high-tech, ball-shaped arena has more than doubled to $2.2 billion since the start of the pandemic. Last month, The Post reported exclusively that Dolan fired the latest executive in charge of the project, Lucas Watson.
Under the hotly contested business deal, the 67-year-old entertainment and real-estate billionaire allegedly swindled shareholders on both sides of an agreement to join Madison Square Garden’s cable-TV operations with its entertainment venues, plaintiffs alleged.
According to securities filings, Dolan last month cut a $85 million settlement over the explosive allegations with shareholders of MSG Entertainment, which in addition to Madison Square Garden owns a number of venues including Radio City Music Hall and the Rockettes.
Dolan separately on Friday reached “an agreement in principle” to settle allegations with investors in Delaware Chancery Court on the other side of the deal — shareholders in MSG Networks, according to court filings.
“We are pleased to inform the court that the parties have reached an agreement in principle to settle this action,” plaintiffs’ attorney Christine Mackintosh wrote in a court filing last week, adding that she had cancelled plans to file pre-trial briefs and had cancelled plans for a trial slated for April 17.
Mackintosh also said the parties “will work expeditiously to submit a stipulation of settlement and related papers and will contact chambers for the court’s availability for a hearing to approve the proposed settlement.”
James Lawrence Dolan, born May 11, 1955, according to Wikipedia is an American businessman who is executive chairman and CEO of Madison Square Garden Sports and Madison Square Garden Entertainment, and executive chairman of MSG Networks. As the companies’ chairman, Dolan oversees all operations within the company and supervises day-to-day operations of its professional sports teams, the New York Knicks and New York Rangers as well as their regional sports networks, which include MSG Network and MSG Plus. Dolan was previously CEO of Cablevision until its sale in June 2016.
