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BIA ruling against Harrah's affirmed

WILMINGTON, Delaware -- (PRESS RELEASE) -- The Catskill Litigation Trust ("Trust") is presently pursuing enforcement of a class action default judgment for $1,787,000,000 in compensatory and punitive damages and $1,000,000,000 in judgment interest awarded by the St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Court ("Tribal Court") against Harrah's Operating Company, Inc. ("Harrah's"), a subsidiary of Harrah's Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: HET). The default judgment was assigned to the Trust in June of 2007 after public notice to over 12,000 class members, with the approval of the Tribal Court.

Harrah's is the successor by merger to Park Place Entertainment Corporation ("Park Place"), against which the class action judgment was initially entered in March 2001 in Tribal Court. The judgment was issued after Park Place initially appeared in the Tribal Court to defend the action, by filing a motion to dismiss the complaint on the merits in May 2000, but subsequently abandoned its defense and accepted the issuance of a default judgment in March 2001. Earlier, Park Place attempted to enjoin the Tribal Court proceedings in federal court in June 2000, but did not succeed in its federal court action, nor on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

In a decision dated October 31, 2007, the U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs ("BIA"), has now ruled that the Three Chief Government of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe -- which has confirmed the validity of the class action default judgment against Harrah's -- will be recognized by the BIA as the governing authority of the Tribe for all government-to-government relations. In addition, the BIA ruled that two prior decisions by the BIA in June and July 2002, issued in response to a request by a federal judge in a lawsuit initiated by Park Place to enjoin enforcement of the default judgment, "as a matter of law are now no longer extant".

The BIA decisions were solicited in part by lobbyists for Park Place, but were subsequently invalidated by Judge David Peebles of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York in February 2004.

By its ruling, the BIA has reaffirmed the long standing position of the U.S. Department of Justice that "the Tribal Court was established by the Tribal Court Act in December, 1994, before the passage and existence of the Constitution. Moreover, the Tribal Court exits independent of what government is in place."

Dennis Vacco, former Attorney General of the State of New York and Trustee said, "Since the filing of our enforcement action in June 2007, Harrah's, through its lawyers and lobbyists, has once again attempted to influence and persuade the BIA to rule that the Tribal Court lacked validity. The BIA has now rejected these efforts by indicating in the ruling of October 31 that submissions by third parties were to be sequestered and not considered by the BIA in arriving at its determination. Park Place attempted to influence the BIA in prior years, but ex parte decisions obtained by its lobbyists from the BIA have been invalidated by the courts and are now no longer recognized."

A copy of the October 31 decision and an Investigative Report by Mr. Vacco, commissioned in 2007 by the St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Council, is available at Catskilltrust.com.

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