Jurors deliberating Sands lawsuit
In a final plea, an attorney for Hong Kong businessman Richard Suen said Friday that there was circumstantial evidence showing that the Chinese government worked behind the scenes to make sure Las Vegas Sands Corp. won a lucrative gaming license from Macau authorities in 2002.
That aspect, Los Angeles attorney John O’Malley told a Clark County District Court jury, was made possible by the actions of Suen, who filed a civil lawsuit against the casino operator in 2004, claiming he is owed millions for assisting the company’s licensing efforts.
An eight-person jury of five women and three men began deliberating Friday afternoon.
The jury heard almost six weeks of testimony and more than two days of closing arguments in District Judge Michelle Leavitt’s courtroom. Jurors deliberated nine hours until 11 p.m. Friday and will resume deliberations today.
Suen’s attorneys asked jurors to award their client up to $100 million based on a $5 million success fee and 2 percent of the company’s net profits from the Venetian Macau and Sands Macau.
Las Vegas Sands attorney Rusty Hardin told the jury Thursday that Suen deserves nothing because he never made good on his promise to Las Vegas Sands executives throughout 2000 and 2001 to deliver a gaming license. Jurors were shown excerpts of Suen’s testimony early in the trial where he says he should receive nothing if he didn’t deliver the gaming license.
Las Vegas Sands partnered with Hong Kong-based Galaxy Entertainment in February 2002 and was awarded one of three gaming licenses by the Macau government. The companies could not reach a contract agreement, however, and the partnership was dissolved. Macau then awarded Las Vegas Sands a subconcession.
Suen testified that a series of meetings he arranged in Beijing in July 2001 between Chinese government officials and Las Vegas Sands executives was responsible for the casino operator winning its licensing bid. Suen believes the Chinese government wanted Las Vegas Sands to win one of the gaming licenses based on those meetings.
Friday morning, O’Malley reminded jurors of testimony that showed Las Vegas Sands President Bill Weidner was called to a secret meeting in Macau with the Chinese special administrative region’s chief executive, Edmund Ho. At that meeting, Las Vegas Sands, which was in a doomed partnership with a Taiwanese bank, was paired with Galaxy.
Two members of the Macau Tender Commission, a former Las Vegas Sands attorney from Hong Kong and a representative from an accounting firm all testified that they did not know about the meeting between Weidner and Ho.
“Why did Edmund Ho have a predisposition toward (Las Vegas Sands)?” O’Malley said. “Twice, (Las Vegas Sands) was rescued. Once by Edmund Ho and once by the awarding of the subconcession.”