Manhattan Club Lawsuit

With regard to paying your maintenance fees, there has been no order of the court, as far as I know, to disallow TMC from billing and collecting them.

However, for a contract to be in force there has to be compliance with its terms on both sides. As TMC has violated the terms of the share owners agreement as we see it, the contract has been broken.

Lawsuits filed by individual timeshare owners attempting to get relief, and release from the sales contract, have all reportedly been dismissed by the courts. A huge miscarriage of justice, with payoffs presumably involved. It has been reported that a former attorney from the NYS Attorney General's office was recruited to Bruce Eichorn's legal team. It is quite obvious why Eichorn hired him.

AG Schneiderman is spending his time trying to get re-elected and the other attorneys in his office have not been forthcoming. There does not appear to be much interest in this case and, politically or otherwise, it may be because the AG's office is being discouraged from pushing this. We need to get a leader in there that will not back down, and has the skills and tenacity to bring justice to the victims of this scam.

............PERHAPS JOHN CAHILL IS THE ANSWER WE'RE LOOKING FOR AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO SCHNEIDERMAN, BUT HIS LACK OF AN AG TRACK RECORD MIGHT BE A DETRIMENT. HOWEVER, NEW BLOOD MIGHT BE THE ANSWER.

charlesm548 wrote:

With regard to paying your maintenance fees, there has been no order of the court, as far as I know, to disallow TMC from billing and collecting them.

However, for a contract to be in force there has to be compliance with its terms on both sides. As TMC has violated the terms of the share owners agreement as we see it, the contract has been broken.

Lawsuits filed by individual timeshare owners attempting to get relief, and release from the sales contract, have all reportedly been dismissed by the courts. A huge miscarriage of justice, with payoffs presumably involved. It has been reported that a former attorney from the NYS Attorney General's office was recruited to Bruce Eichorn's legal team. It is quite obvious why Eichorn hired him.

AG Schneiderman is spending his time trying to get re-elected and the other attorneys in his office have not been forthcoming. There does not appear to be much interest in this case and, politically or otherwise, it may be because the AG's office is being discouraged from pushing this. We need to get a leader in there that will not back down, and has the skills and tenacity to bring justice to the victims of this scam.

We need to keep the pressure on the AG's office by calling, emailing, signing the petition etc. Schneiderman has won his past elections by pluralities of 70+. He is likely to win re-election with or without us. The Manhattan Club is trying to settle this case. The AG's office has rejected the Manhattan Club's settlement offer. We have to make sure our concerns are addressed in whatever settlement or prosecution that comes out of the AG's office. We have to keep the pressure on to make sure that happens. The AG's office has video and audio of the Manhattan Club's scam operation. The AG's office has the proof to prosecute and convict. We have to let the AG's office know we are following this case and will make our voices and opinions know. TMC owners need to be made whole.

Is there any scheduled date in NYC for further hearings? I'd love to go if there are. Thanks for keeping everyone on this website in the loop.

Unless things have changed recently Jeffrey.Rendin@ag.ny.gov emailed me he is no longer working on the Manhattan Club case.

You can check with the Attorney General's Public Affairs Office in New York to find out when the next scheduled hearing is for the Manhattan Club case.

I would email serwat.farooq@ag.ny.gov to ask for their number.

Irene Smalls

irenes93 wrote:

We need to keep the pressure on the AG's office by calling, emailing, signing the petition etc. Schneiderman has won his past elections by pluralities of 70+. He is likely to win re-election with or without us. The Manhattan Club is trying to settle this case. The AG's office has rejected the Manhattan Club's settlement offer. We have to make sure our concerns are addressed in whatever settlement or prosecution that comes out of the AG's office. We have to keep the pressure on to make sure that happens. The AG's office has video and audio of the Manhattan Club's scam operation. The AG's office has the proof to prosecute and convict. We have to let the AG's office know we are following this case and will make our voices and opinions know. TMC owners need to be made whole.

"THE AG'S OFFICE HAS REJECTED THE MAHATTAN CLUB'S SETTLEMENT OFFER".......................JUST WHERE DID THIS INFO COME FROM.................IE, THAT THE MC ACTUALLY MADE A SETTLEMENT OFFER.....AND WHAT WAS THIS ALLEGED OFFER?? THIS IS THE VERY FIRST TIME I'M HEARING OF THIS OCCURRENCE, AND I'VE BEEN IN TOUCH WITH THE AG'S OFFICE AND THIS REDWEEK.COM FORUM COUNTLESS TIMES.

COME ON FOLKS: WE NEED A FOOLPROOF METHOD OF "BEING AND STAYING ON THE SAME PAGE" CONCERNING THESE MATTERS THAT AFFECT ALL OF US FINANCIALLY. AND THE AG MUST KEEP US INFORMED SO THAT WE AN MAKE FINANCIAL JUDGEMENTS THAT BENEFIT US ALL.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/travel/the-manhattan-club.html?review=859199#review-859199

ABOVE is the email address of CONSUMER AFFAIRS for you to click on or copy/paste. there have been over 90 complaints about THE MANHATTAN CLUB recorded and printed on the CONSUMER AFFAIRS SITE. owners, get on your computers NOW and send in your legitimate MANHATTAN CLUB complaints referencing our connection with the current new york state attorney general, eric schneiderman, and send him, the AG, the CONSUMER AFFAIRS LINK with all of the complaints registered there. schneiderman seems to be working on this case, but it appears to hold less importance than other cases that get to his office. THERE 18,000 wronged purchasers of shares in THE MANHATTAN CLUB LOCATED IN NEW YORK STATE. i'm sure NEW YORK STATE and the ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE does not want NEW YORK TO BECOME known as a shabby place to do business concerning millions of collective dollars.

I was informed by someone close toTMC management that TMC lawyers submitted a settlement offer that was rejected by the Attorney General's office. This is a confidential source. This source has proven reliable in the past regarding information on this case.

Well we re-elected Eric Schneiderman as our Attorney General. Let's hope he now turns some attention to prosecuting this case on behalf of scammed victims.

Jeffrey Rendin, Esq., who was working on this case, has moved on to other matters in the AG's office. Does anyone know who our primary contact should be, if not Eric Schneiderman? I have not heard of anyone receiving any acknowledgment from Schneiderman to any communication sent to his attention.

With regard to TMC making a settlement offer, I think we all deserve to know what the demand was from the AG office to which TMC made the settlement offer! Wouldn't we all expect the demand to be Eichorn's reimbursement of all costs and fees paid by TMC timeshare owners!? In all the years I have owned I have only been granted a room once!

Maybe we need to organize a stand-in at Schneiderman's office to gain the necessary attention from media and the AG's office.

Has anyone written to Mayor DeBlasio? Manhattan is one of his boroughs, and I doubt he wants to sully Manhattan's reputation by having that name on such a crooked operation. Also, I assume many owners are "tourists" -- and the Manhattan Club's scam reinforces some of NYC's worst bad-reputation stereotypes. In addition to writing to DeBlasio directly, I imagine the Mayor's office has a tourism bureau that would want to follow up.

irene,

the source of your information may be confidential; HOWEVER, the rejected MANHATTAN CLUB settlement is not a secret. just what was the settlement offer? we deserve to know what schneiderman rejected.

irenes93 wrote:

I was informed by someone close toTMC management that TMC lawyers submitted a settlement offer that was rejected by the Attorney General's office. This is a confidential source. This source has proven reliable in the past regarding information on this case.

LET US ALL KNOW NOW. IT'S IMPERATIVE THAT WE CONTINUE TO WORK TOGETHER AS A UNIFIED BODY.................you get the picture............."united we stand, divided.........................."

chris volpe

I received a voice message from "Danielle" at the MHC this morning threatening collection activity against us. This may be in violation of the order by the NY AG's office.

I am forwarding this message as well as any other communications from the MHC to the AG's office for further investigation.

I am keeping records of all communications in all formats and saving copies both local and offsite for as evidence for this and any future legal remedy we may seek against the MHC.

I would like to be included in the lawsuit. I am one of the original owners and have not been able to get a reservation in probably more than10 years!

I didn't not ask for the details of the rejected settlement offer from TMC. Since the offer was rejected I did not think it important to know the details.

Here are the email addresses I have for the AG's office.

eric.schneiderman@ag.ny.gov; andrew.Meier@ag.ny.gov; serwat.farooq@ag.ny.gov,

Jeff Rendin is no longer on the TMC case.

A settlement offer is usually only made in response to a settlement demand. Any settlement demand put forth by the Attorney General is of great interest to us.

Just what have they asked for from Eichorn. Do we have any reason/hope for being made financially whole?

charles m,

your comments are very aptly put. whatever the "settlement" was, declined or not, we deserve to know. irene has been a tireless force for us, but she's made the wrong call on this one. you're so right, we need to be made "financially whole" having been squashed by EICHNER (not eichorn) and his gang for so long and for so many times. just got my maintenance bill............$2,500...............and that's annually, less taxes, PER FRIGGIN WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!am i pissed? you bet i am, and i'm (we're) still not "financially whole." sorry for the lowlife language, but i'm annoyed enough to stoop to that at the moment. FOR IRENE: any and all information of the legal proceedings are very important for all of us to be made aware of..............as they occur. so your reliable information from your reliable source should be shared with all of us owners.

chris volpe

charlesm548 wrote:

A settlement offer is usually only made in response to a settlement demand. Any settlement demand put forth by the Attorney General is of great interest to us.

Just what have they asked for from Eichorn. Do we have any reason/hope for being made financially whole?

ronc217 wrote:

I would like to be included in the lawsuit. I am one of the original owners and have not been able to get a reservation in probably more than10 years!

ronc217, this is not a class action suit brought on by shareholders of TMC. i's a legal proceeding instigated by our NEW YORK STAT ATTORNEY GENERAL, ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN, against THE MANHATTAN CLUB due to the thousands of complaints of excessive maintenance fees, and mega difficulties getting our deserved reservation time, he's received from shareholders of THE CLUB. so, you're "incuded" in the suit to the extent of gaining legal relief from the alleged legal expertise of mr schneiderman regarding this lawsuit.

Chris V,

Write another letter or same letter with copy of new maintenance fees for 2015. Most of us are in the same boat enormous fees. I have not inquired what the new fee is for my unit this year. I won't be paying it. Not until the NY AG's office figures out what they are going to do with Eichner and his corrupt cronies and what's been happening at TMC for years.

Below is an interview of the pompous criminal Bruce Eichner. He is using our money, and duplicate sales of our share time to invest in his other endeavors. Sounds like all he cares about is making money, doesn't care what it takes, and has no problem walking away from his debts when it serves him ...

Bruce Eichner is chairman of the Continuum Company, a privately held firm focused on the acquisition and development of residential, office, hospitality and retail space in New York, Miami and Las Vegas. His projects have included the Manhattan Club, which opened in 1997 as the city’s first time-share resort; the Continuum, a 2 million-square-foot condo community in South Beach that had openings in 2002 and 2008; and the 3,000-room Cosmopolitan Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, which opened last year. Eichner — who started his career as a lawyer and assistant district attorney in Brooklyn and also worked in the Rockefeller administration — has dealt with his own foreclosure and defaults in the past. His firm is currently developing 10 assisted-living facilities in Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and Fairfield counties. And he’s waiting to pounce on the chance to step in with a rescue bid at troubled Manhattan condo One Madison Park.

What is your full name? Ian Bruce Eichner.

Why don’t people call you Ian? Because when I was a kid, you don’t like being called “Peein’ Ian.” Also, my mother — and she pronounces it “I-on” — she’d say: “Ian Bruce Eichner, get up here now!”

What is your date of birth? June 25, 1945. Are you aware that that [year] is the single greatest vintage of the 20th century in Bordeaux?

Where did you grow up? Sunnyside, Queens.

Where do you live now? I’ve been living at 52 Park Avenue. I’m about to move into a new apartment at One Morton Square [on April 1].

Do you have other homes? In East Hampton, Las Vegas and South Beach.

How long have you been married to Linda, who is in charge of marketing and interior design for your projects, and how did you meet? Twenty-five years. [We met] at a pool party in East Hampton. I was dating someone else. I talked to her for three hours and then didn’t see her again for two years.

Have you been married before? For an hour, when I was in college.

Do you have any children? We have a 25-year-old, Lindsay, and we have Alexandra, the magnificent, who’s 23. Alexandra just came back from China. After graduating [from the University of Pennsylvania], she decided to go to Shanghai and seek her fortune.

Did she find it? [Laughs.] I don’t think so. She’s back — she’s “beeacck.” She and Arnold Schwarzenegger are “beeeacck.” And Lindsay works for the new start-up Town [Residential] by [Andrew] Heiberger. Lindsay has a better Rolodex than I do.

How’d you get into real estate? I liked working for the nonprofit world … but they pay you $1.95 and all the Hi-C orange drink you can drink. So, I started ferreting around, and I had shared an office, when I was working for the DA, with a guy who lived in Park Slope. Never heard of it. … I went into the Slope in 1969 and ’70 and I said, “This thing looks to me like Greenwich Village.” I realized there was an opportunity. Only problem was — no money, no family in the business. And so I started, in 1973, with a borrowed $10,000 and I bought a rooming house at number 40 Montgomery Place from Mrs. Fitzpatrick. And then I went to a Shylock and borrowed 40,000 bucks to renovate it and I turned it into a rental.

Do you have a trademark? Maybe my ties … the designer is Leonard. I have about 100 or 150 of them.

How would you describe your personality? I’m reasonably chatty, as you’ve ascertained. I have a semblance of a sense of humor. I have a real bevy of interests. I travel to rather esoteric places. I’m a collector. I play a lot of tennis; I still play tournaments sometimes — doubles.

You’re going on vacation tomorrow [at the time of the interview in late January]. Where are you headed? I’m going to Rwanda to see silverback mountain gorillas and to northwest Kenya to go leopard trekking. This will be my 11th safari. I’ve been all over — Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Uganda.

How did you get into safaris? It really started in college. I was a history major. I grew interested in the Masai, which are a tribe that occupy the Masai Mara [in] Kenya. I always wanted to go to Africa.

You are not a New York City household name like Trump and Durst and Tishman. Why do you think that is? [Number] one is that a bunch of the people you just mentioned are families — family businesses. Number two, I have spent the preponderance of the last eight-plus years doing developments [elsewhere]. There were a zillion articles in the Vegas papers about the Cosmopolitan, and same thing in South Beach [with] the Continuum.

What’s going on at One Madison Park? One of the creditors put it into bankruptcy in Delaware in June of last year. And I came along and proposed to inject new money [$40 million] into the building to recapitalize it and offered to finish it.

Late last month, developer Ira Shapiro and investor Cevdet Caner tentatively agreed to sell the property to HFZ Capital Group. Where does that leave you? It is highly likely we will actively pursue a competing plan for the benefit of the creditors. [This question and answer were added after the initial interview was held to reflect unfolding developments at the project.]

What’s the deal with the condo you bought there for $5 million, a big discount from the asking price? I bought an apartment at One Madison Park to live in. It’s part of the bankruptcy. It’s a claim that I have along with everybody else.

You defaulted on CitySpire on 56th Street and the Bertelsmann Building at 1540 Broadway, both in the early 1990s, and at the Cosmopolitan in Vegas in 2007. Are you feeling discouraged today? No. Like I try to explain to my kids, there’s only one thing you’re in control of — your level of effort. I’m not a genius when I make $50 million. I’m not a failure if I lose it.

- See more at: http://therealdeal.com/closings/bruce-eichner/#sthash.ENY2Fa4L.dpuf

Eichner may have had an in with Bloomberg, but maybe DeBlasio is willing to do something. Anyone on this thread know someone in the NY Mayor's office?

______________________________________________________

Getting to know the creep ...

Where do you live now?

(Eichner) I’ve been living at 52 Park Avenue. I’m about to move into a new apartment at One Morton Square.

Do you have other homes?

(Eichner) In East Hampton, Las Vegas and South Beach.

________________________________________________________

Property Mogul Poised to Take a Second Fall (2008)

Eichner in Talks to Surrender Casino to Deutsche Bank; 'Zero Will Stick to My Shoes' he said. By JENNIFER S. FORSYTH Updated May 9, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET

LAS VEGAS -- Sixteen years ago, developer Ian Bruce Eichner was forced to give his lenders the keys to his newly finished office tower in Times Square. The empty building, a symbol of one of the worst downturns in U.S. commercial real-estate history, ultimately cost his lenders and partners about $200 million.

Mr. Eichner, a slender, fast-talking New Yorker, managed to stage a second act -- but it appears to be ending much like the first. Cosmopolitan Resort Casino, the casino-hotel complex he's building on the Las Vegas Strip, got caught last year in the capital-markets crisis and is headed toward foreclosure. Deutsche Bank AG has sunk nearly $1 billion into the project, and two other lenders have provided $175 million. It's unclear how much of it they'll be able to recoup.

Losing Hand

The News: Developer Ian Bruce Eichner is on the verge of losing control of his Las Vegas casino-resort project to his lenders. The Background: Commercial real-estate lenders have been growing more nervous about the market, which made it difficult for Mr. Eichner to get financing. What's Next: Talks under way now will determine who takes over the partially completed project. On Thursday, Mr. Eichner and representatives of Deutsche Bank were deep in discussions that are expected to end with the 62-year-old developer surrendering all involvement with the partially completed project, people familiar with the discussions say.

In an interview earlier this year, Mr. Eichner said he was a victim of the credit crisis, and that banks eventually would lend to him again. "It's probably pretty safe to say that somewhere in 2009 or 2010, Bruce Eichner will surface with another one, something," he says. "There's zero that will stick to my shoes."

Mr. Eichner's roller-coaster track record shows that in commercial real estate, failure on an epic scale need not be a career killer. Other prominent developers also had to surrender projects to lenders in the 1990s, only to borrow more money and fail again in the most recent cycle. Earlier this year, New York developer Harry Macklowe, who gave back several buildings more than a decade ago, defaulted on short-term loans he used last year to buy seven Manhattan skyscrapers for $7 billion, because he was unable to line up long-term financing.

The willingness of lenders to give such developers more money helped fuel the commercial real-estate boom that started in 2003 and reached its zenith in early 2007. Some of those lenders now face the potential for loan losses. Centro Properties Group, one of the largest shopping-center owners in the U.S. and Australia, for example, has been unable so far to repay $4.9 billion in short-term debt owed since December to creditors including J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Hardly anyone is predicting that souring commercial real-estate loans will cause the kind of banking crisis that struck in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when large banks in the U.S. and Japan had sizable chunks of their loan portfolios tied up in the collapsing sector. Although commercial real-estate values have softened in some markets, they haven't experienced the kind of free fall that occurred back then.

And this time around, lenders tried to spread the risk. They gathered loans into pools and sliced them up for sale to investors as commercial mortgage-backed securities, much as housing lenders did on the consumer side of the market. So far, securities backed by commercial mortgages are performing far better than their residential counterparts, whose implosion helped set off today's broader credit crunch.

But like residential lenders, some commercial real-estate lenders, including Wall Street investment banks, were lulled by sharp increases in property values and projections for fat profits. Competition among lenders was so intense that developers were allowed to kick in less and less of their own money -- sometimes less than 1%.

Ideal Environment It proved to be an ideal environment for battered developers to stage their comebacks. To be sure, they couldn't do business with some of the lenders who backed them previously. But there were plenty of others.

"If I or anyone else needed money, you could call up the bank and they would send a Brinks truck over to your office," says Donald Trump, who admits to have put "some hurt on banks" in the early 1990s, during the prior cycle. "There was so much money flowing, so much money." Mr. Trump, having bounced back, in recent years built residential towers in Manhattan and forged lucrative licensing deals that added his name to dozens of luxury buildings around the world.

For Mr. Eichner, who brags that he finished last in his law-school class at the University of Cincinnati, the 1990s brought plenty of trouble. Besides giving back the Times Square building, called 1540 Broadway, he lost CitySpire, billed at the time as Manhattan's tallest apartment house, to his creditors in 1992. In 2000, subcontractors who hadn't been paid forced his Park Central Hotel, another New York project, into bankruptcy-court protection. Yet because Mr. Eichner relied heavily on debt and contributed little of his own money, the failure of the projects didn't lead to ruinous personal losses, people familiar with the projects say.

At least one lender vowed never to lend to Mr. Eichner. Bernd Knobloch, chief executive of Eurohypo AG, a bank based in Eschborn, Germany, recalls a meeting in the late 1990s in which Mr. Eichner handed him a book by Jerry Adler that chronicled the Times Square failure: "High Rise: How 1,000 Men and Women Worked Around the Clock for Five Years and Lost $200 Million Building a Skyscraper." Mr. Knobloch says he was astonished. "He handed me the book that talked about how he lost $200 million," he recalls. "To his prospective lender. I said to myself, 'This is not a man I'm going to work with.' He never saw me again."

Mr. Eichner says he doesn't recall meeting Mr. Knobloch. He concedes that some lenders likely blacklisted him. "The first couple of deals, I was under a microscope, and not surprisingly. There are people to this day who won't deal with Harry, won't deal with Donald, and won't deal with me."

Deutsche Bank's relationship with Mr. Eichner began tentatively. In 2000, Mr. Eichner needed a loan to build a condominium high-rise in Miami's South Beach. Deutsche Bank arranged for GMAC LLC to make the loan, with the bank promising to make GMAC whole if the project failed, according to two people familiar with the deal. The project, called the Continuum, sold well, GMAC's loan was paid on time, and Deutsche Bank earned a fee of close to $15 million. After that, Mr. Eichner says, "my stock was pretty high with the bank." A Deutsche Bank spokesman declined to comment.

Soaring Values By the middle of this decade, fueled by low-interest rates, easy credit and soaring values, commercial real estate was hot once again. Developers were building and selling at significant profits. And lenders were competing to make big loans that brought big fees. Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia Corp., for example, jumped from near the back of the pack in 2002 to take the lead in commercial lending by 2007, by combining attractive terms with aggressive marketing on loans of $50 million and up.

In 2003, Mr. Eichner began looking at a slim, eight-acre plot on the Las Vegas Strip, which he considered suitable for some kind of development. He had $10 million to invest. He lined up an additional $40 million in equity from Soros Fund Management, an investment group founded by George Soros, and approached Deutsche Bank for a $60 million loan to buy the land. The bank figured that with Soros money behind the deal, it was a relatively safe bet, according to a person knowledgeable about the bank's decision. It made the loan.

Before long, Mr. Eichner was aiming big: two 600-foot towers atop a casino, four floors of retail and five levels of underground parking. The project would be wedged between the Bellagio and MGM Grand's big new CityCenter project.

Mr. Eichner and his wife, Leslie, who advises him on interior design, began brainstorming. They hired Miami-based architect firm Arquitectonica to come up with an edgy design. Ms. Eichner envisioned some rooms with leopard-skin-patterned wallpaper and others with see-through glass around the bathtubs. "You can come here with your husband, with someone else's husband, whatever," says Mr. Eichner. (such integrity!)

For the retail space, they ordered up a pair of 28-foot industrial robots programmed to box, to dance to "Disco Inferno," and to play 12-foot Fender Stratocaster guitars. On the roof above the casino and stores, they planned a five-acre "beach" with sand, cabanas and a pool with artificial tides.

Mr. Eichner says condo buyers were enthusiastic about the plans, with buyers putting down nonrefundable deposits totaling nearly $280 million, representing almost $1.4 billion in sales.

But the bank declined to give Mr. Eichner more money unless he put a lot more cash into the deal -- either his own or money raised from investors, according to the person knowledgeable about the bank's approach.

By early this year, Deutsche Bank's loans for the project stood at $760 million. A spokesman for the bank declines to comment on whether any slices of the loan were sold off to other lenders.

On Jan. 15, unable to raise the equity needed to get a larger loan, Mr. Eichner defaulted. That in turn triggered defaults on his financing from Hyatt and Marathon. The project was only about one-third completed.