One of the four groups bidding for the opportunity to refurbish and operate the Hotel Casino Carrasco in Montevideo, Uruguay, is crying foul.

The accusing party is a consortium made up of the Hyatt hotel chain and the investment group Liberman. A representative of the consortium, Marcelo Graniero, questioned the transparency of the tender process being conducted by the city council.

The problem, according to Graniero, is that the Montevideo Council’s guidelines require a certification that the financial aspects of the company and the project are sound. When the proposals were submitted, Graniero maintains, only the Hyatt-Liberman plan fulfilled the financial requirement.

The three other companies seeking the contract are Codere (Spain), with Accor handling the hotel aspects, Tsakos (Greece) and Pestana (Portugal).

The Tsakos representative, Armando Bonilla, rejected the accusation by Graniero, saying that the economic base of his company was “irrefutable.” A representative of Pestana had no comment. Codere is a well-known name in gaming in Spain and throughout Latin America.

The financial requirement is only one of several by which the Council judged the proposals in this first phase of the process. This first stage also included a description of the administrative software that would be used to oversee the licensee, the architectural proposal and the business plan for operating the casino.

By GGB Staff

Staff writers for Global Gaming Business magazine. Las Vegas, Nevada.