Las Vegas Sands Corp. may be sanctioned in a lawsuit brought by the fired chief executive officer of its China casinos for not disclosing that evidence it said couldn’t be taken out of Macau was already in the US.
The casino operator, run and majority-owned by Sheldon Adelson, was ordered to explain to a Nevada judge in Las Vegas Monday how and why files from its Macau operations, requested by Steven Jacobs as evidence in his breach-of-contract case, ended up in the US. while the company claimed that Macau law prevented it from transferring them overseas.
Clark County District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez said at the start of the hearing that lawyers for Las Vegas Sands and its Sands China Ltd. subsidiary had not been “forthright” with her last year by failing to tell her that Jacob’s computer files, including e-mails, from Macau were already in Las Vegas. The hearing is scheduled to continue Tuesday.
Jacobs, the former CEO of Sands China, sued in 2010 after he was fired. Jacobs alleges he was dismissed because he wouldn’t give in to Adelson’s “illegal demands.” Jacobs said Adelson directed him to secretly investigate Macau government officials and use “improper leverage” against them.