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Petitioners assert that Ballard and Lisle did not have the
power to award the contract to Hyatt in part because their
positions with Prudential did not give them such authority and in
part because there were others besides Prudential participating
in the project. Although Ballard and Lisle may not have been in
a position to guarantee that the contract would be given to
Hyatt, their opinions as Prudential executives would have
influenced the other owners. Certainly a negative opinion with
respect to a bidder would have foreclosed the possibility of the
bidder getting the contract. Strum, CEO of the Prudential Realty
Group for Development and Retail Property Investments, testified
that Ballard had the "hierarchy power" either to influence the
selection of contractors or to prevent a project from going
forward. Initially, Lisle used his "prevention power" to keep
Hyatt even from being considered for the management contract.
Ballard and Lisle may not have had the power to guarantee that
Hyatt would get the contract, but they did have the power to
guarantee that it would not get the contract.
Kanter claims that he did not know about Hyatt's arrangement
with Weaver until Pritzker later asked him about some language in
the agreement. The copies of the correspondence between Weaver
and Hyatt concerning the dispute over the computation of the fees
were copies that Kanter had in his records. He claimed that
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