Fontainebleau fires back with counterclaim against Wynn’s allegations of employee poaching

Fontainebleau Las Vegas has issued a counterclaim against Wynn Las Vegas in Clark County District Court, asserting that executives who departed Wynn to join the new resort did so voluntarily due to dissatisfaction with their former employer.

The counterclaim, filed Tuesday, invokes The Eagles’ song “New Kid in Town” to describe the circumstances surrounding the hiring of at least eight executives from Wynn, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. This comes in response to Wynn's lawsuit on February 29, which accused Fontainebleau of interfering with contractual relations by recruiting employees with non-compete clauses.

The filing includes a profanity-laden email exchange between Wynn CEO Craig Billings and Fontainebleau CEO Jeff Soffer.

“Fontainebleau’s counterclaim, filled with fictitious accusations, was clearly designed to incite social media chatter and is devoid of answers to our original claim,” Wynn officials said in a statement after the filing of the counterclaim. “The facts of our original claim against Fontainebleau are clear: Fontainebleau induced Wynn employees to breach their lawful employment contracts."

"We believe Fontainebleau engaged in that practice because we believe they lack the ability to develop, and based upon numerous recent news reports, to retain talent. They cannot solve these widely reported problems by encouraging employees to break the lawful employment contracts they have negotiated with other employers. We strongly objected to that behavior because it is clearly unethical, and we shall soon find out if a court believes it is also unlawful,” it added.

“New Kid in Town,” a 1976 Eagles hit about insecurities that follow fading popularity and attraction, said Wynn “is now confessing those same insecurities for the whole world to see," according to Review-Journal.

The counterclaim states that senior Fontainebleau executives stayed for an extensive period at Wynn during the construction of Fontainebleau and that Wynn CEO Billings and President Gullbrants welcomed substantial revenues from Fontainebleau's team, exceeding seven figures.

According to the response, as Wynn executives familiarized themselves with the leadership at Fontainebleau, a number of them became intrigued by the prospect of beginning anew at the brand-new resort and some eventually considered the possibility of transitioning to Fontainebleau. As more executives considered leaving, the counterclaim alleges that Wynn resorted to tactics of coercion to retain them.

At one instance, Soffer reached out to Billings, who was on vacation, and received a response laden with profanity, the report said.

“As FBDev and FBLV have now come to know from subsequent interactions, Billings demonstrated a disturbing lack of dignity and judgment normally exhibited by CEOs of publicly traded companies,” the counterclaim said.

“We clearly hope Fontainebleau will achieve the success to which it aspires; their success, if it comes, will benefit all of us,” Wynn’s statement said.