Courts | LVS may face billions loss in coming lawsuit 

The U.S. casino conglomerate Las Vegas Sands (LVS) is facing a USD 12 billion lawsuit from a former partner, Asian American Entertainment Corporation (Asian American), in a Macau court, according to a report published by Reuters yesterday.
Asian American, led by Taiwanese mogul Marshall Hao, is seeking damages of approximately 70% of Sands Macau’s profits from 2004 to 2022 — which, Reuters gauged, will add up to a tally of around USD12 billion.
Asian American has accused Sands of violating the contract for a casino license in Macau.
The saga dates back to 2001, when Sands and Asian American co-tendered for the city’s gaming concession. However, it turned out that Sands abandoned Asian American and partnered with Hong Kong group Galaxy Entertainment instead.
In the end, the Sands-Galaxy joint venture secured a gaming license.
Sands backed away from its joint venture with Asian American and then submitted a near-identical replica of its previous submission with new partner Galaxy, Marshall Hao told Reuters.
“Asian American has been winning all major legal battles in the Macau lawsuit since we filed it in 2012…we are confident,” Hao said.
The trial in Macau will commence on June 16. The lawsuit is considered quite an obstacle to LVS, especially amidst heated competition for the renewal of gaming concessions in Macau.
The city’s six casino licenses are due to expire in June 2022. The potential financial cost of USD 12 billion will once again hurt the group’s operation, which has been undermined by the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The legal dispute between Asian American and LVS has constituted a long battle, fought since 2007, when the lawsuit against LVS was first filed in the U.S., which was dismissed for exceeding the statute of limitations and other procedural reasons.
In 2019, Sands stated that it “has consistently maintained that this case has no merit. We have confidence that ultimately the Macau judicial process will reach the same conclusion.”
In its latest annual report, Sands said it was “currently unable to determine the probability of the outcome of this matter or the range of reasonably possible loss, if any.”