Sands gets USD70m verdict over Macau permit thrown out

Richard Suen (left)

Las Vegas Sands Corp. for a second time persuaded the Nevada Supreme Court to throw out a jury award won by a Hong Kong businessman who claimed he helped the casino company win permission to operate in Macau.
The state’s highest court said Friday there wasn’t sufficient evidence to justify the USD70 million in damages a jury awarded Richard Suen in 2013 and that a new trial was needed.
Suen claimed a meeting he arranged between Sands Chairman Sheldon Adelson and Chinese government officials in Beijing was instrumental in Macau’s decision to include Sands among the foreign casino operators that were given licenses in 2002. He had won a $43.8 million verdict when his claims first went to trial in 2008. That damages award was previously overturned by the Nevada Supreme Court.
Adelson testified during the second trial that Suen, a friend of Adelson’s younger brother Lenny, had “zero” to do with helping the company obtain a concession in the former Portuguese colony. According to Adelson, the Macau government made its decisions independent of the central government in Beijing, which is legally prohibited from intervening in the city’s internal affairs.
Suen testified that in 2000 he alerted Adelson, Sands’ founder and controlling shareholder, to the possibility that Macau would end the gambling monopoly casino mogul Stanley Ho had enjoyed in the enclave since 1962. Suen claimed the goodwill created with Chinese officials through the meetings he helped arrange in Beijing led to the selection of Sands.
The judge overseeing the trial added $31.6 million in interest to the jury award, making the total Sands would have had to pay Suen $101.6 million. Edvard Pettersson, Bloomberg