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In Monaco, a bad game of poker at the Casino Café de Paris

2021-01-12T06:31:47.122Z


Dismissed for "insubordination", the former director of a Monaco casino claims to have been disembarked for having refused to support a pr


He is a recognized specialist in poker, and the gaming world in general.

But for Eric Cicero, it's a part of a whole different issue that will play out this Tuesday.

Far from the green carpets, the former director of the Casino Café de Paris, in the heart of Monaco, will plead his case on appeal, after being dismissed for the first time before the industrial tribunal of the Rocher.

It is a rare procedure in an usually hushed environment, where accounts are not used to being settled in public.

Licensed in 2016 by the Société des Bains de Mer (SBM), which operates all Monegasque casinos, Eric Cicero believes he is the victim of a retaliatory measure linked to his too great respect for the law.

The SBM, it evokes its “insubordination.

"

According to Eric Cicero, however, it is poker that is at the origin of his disgrace.

Monegasque by nationality, himself the son of an employee of the games which he had promised himself not to follow, Eric Cicero could not help but walk in his father's footsteps.

One by one, he rose through the ranks, going from security guard to cashier to establishment manager.

An ambitious project with a Quebec billionaire

Logically enough, it was to him that his superiors turned when, in 2015, an ambitious project was mentioned to set up a "poker room" in the Principality.

All within the framework of an alliance with a partner of choice: Guy Laliberté.

The billionaire Quebecois, founder of the Cirque du Soleil, is indeed a fan of poker, which he organizes each year one of the most endowed tournaments in the world: the "big one for one drop."

»Entrance ticket: one million dollars per person, for about fifty participants.

The initial idea is to transfer an edition to Monaco.

The singer Garou, a longtime friend of Laliberté, validates the idea, he who has his entries in the principality, where he played his musical "Monaco or the lovers of the rock".

But it is said that the romance between Laliberté and the Mediterranean will be stillborn.

Eric Cicero flew to Montreal in October 2015 to negotiate the partnership.

Guy Laliberté, "a brilliant and simple guy with whom I would have loved to work", explains to him that he conditions the course of the tournament on the installation, perennial, of a Poker room for the year.

However, there is a major pitfall.

In the specifications of the SBM, redefined in 2003 and which we were able to consult, appears the entire list of games that only the SBM is authorized to operate within the framework of its monopoly.

The vast majority of poker variants are mentioned there, including "texas hold'em", the most popular.

But it is strictly forbidden for the SBM to subcontract this operation to anyone, other than a 100% subsidiary, which is not envisaged in the Laliberté project, where the Quebec billionaire is expected to own shares in a new structure to be created to manage this Poker room.

In doing so, however, the SBM risks losing its entire monopoly on Monegasque games.

"Reluctance"

Eric Cicero recalls it, playing the ominous birds.

In the exchanges of emails with Guy Laliberté, whom we were able to consult, we thus modestly evoke “reluctance”.

At first, the case seems heard, but at the end of 2016, Eric Cicero was dismissed in a few days.

"My management had just told me that we had to reactivate this poker room project," he recalls.

A request which he understands was made in high places.

He drags his feet.

“I didn't want

advice

given between two doors, but a written order.

"Result: he landed for having" too many times expressed his disagreement with plans of the direction. "

At first instance, "the industrial tribunal recognized that his rights had not been respected, but validated insubordination even though he had only received contradictory and unwritten instructions", points out Me Delphine Frahi, his lawyer.

She is also surprised at a curious twist on the sidelines of this first judgment.

While it was due at the end of 2019, one of the five judges who worked on the case said he was "prevented" on the day of deliberation.

A procedure generally used when there is a conflict of interest, and that the same magistrate had not put forward at the time of the hearing.

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It is therefore more than three years after the facts that this case should find its epilogue.

In view of the manifest illegality of this "poker room" project, it ultimately never saw the light of day.

For its part, in serious financial difficulties linked to the crisis, the SBM is engaged in an important social plan, with several dozen job cuts as a result.

When contacted, neither the SBM nor Guy Laliberté responded to our requests.

Source: leparis

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