Second court denies Asian American appeal in a lawsuit against LVS that goes back to the origins of gaming liberalization

Jorge Menezes, AAEC’s lawyer

The Court of Second Instance (TSI) has denied the appeal of Asian American Entertainment Corporation (AAEC) in its lawsuit against Las Vegas Sands (LVS), upholding a previous ruling from the Court of First Instance (TJB).

In April 2022, the TJB ruled against AAEC’s claim for damages from LVS. AAEC then appealed the decision to the TSI, which has now rejected the appeal. Other appeals filed by AAEC and LVS during the legal proceedings that had not been decided were held to be irrelevant to the decision.

The second court ruled that these other appeals previously filed by both parties were unnecessary to rule upon now that a decision has been made on the AAEC’s appeal against the April 2022 TJB judgment.

AAEC’s lawyer, Jorge Menezes, affirmed that AAEC will appeal the decision to the Court of Final Appeal (TUI).

AAEC has 10 days to request leave to appeal, which is mandatorily granted by law.

Once the TSI notifies AAEC that the appeal has been accepted, the company has 30 days to file its statement on the grounds of appeal, followed by another 30 days for LVS to file its counter statement of appeal.

On Friday, Menezes told the Times that, “I have not yet seen a copy of the second instance’s judgment, so I do not know the reasons underpinning the decision.”

Since both parties’ statements of appeal to the court of second instance were written in Portuguese and the judges of the court are bilingual, he said, “I am confident that the judgment will be written in Portuguese, which is an official language in Macau.”

“I can assure you that we will fight until the very end. We cannot see any reason that would justify denying AAEC’s appeal after the errors found in the Court of First Instance’s judgment issued two years ago”. Therefore, “we will stretch our right foot and accelerate at maximum strength,” he added.

The lawyer, who was named Macau Daily Times’ Person of the Year in 2018, declined to comment on the case itself.

“I will not comment on the contents of the case.”

At stake are tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation in a case that delves into the origins of gaming semi-liberalization and the creation of the juridical figure of sub-concessions.