Casino Owner Sheldon Adelson Loses $70m Lawsuit

American business magnate and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, Sheldon Gary Adelson, has just been hit with a $70 million bill after losing a court case against Hong Kong businessman Richard Suen.
At the heart of Mr Suen’s lawsuit was the claim he had helped secure a gambling license for Las Vegas Sands in the Chinese gambling resort of Macau, by spending $328 million lobbying Chinese officials. Sheldon Adelson’s empire now has four resorts located in the world’s biggest gambling hub, but the casino mogul has insisted that Mr Suen did nothing concrete to secure their license.
During the recent trial Sheldon Adelson, 79, appeared relaxed and often cracked  one-liners that made the jurors smile, including the following reference to his childhood; “I could have been a rags to riches story. But my parents couldn’t afford the rags.”
Nevertheless, at the end of the trial which lasted one month, the court ruled in favour of Richard Suen and awarded him the $70 million sum. Ironically, this lawsuit was originally filed in 2004 and disputed in court back in 2008, when Suen was awarded $58.6 million. However, a Nevada Supreme Court subsequently dismissed the case on appeal.
It would also appear Sheldon Adelson, who has a reported wealth of $26 billion, is once again gearing up to appeal the decision, and after the verdict was delivered Sands attorney J. Stephen Peek requested a retrial claiming that a juror had revealed she was prejudiced against Adelson.
Commenting on the his client’s victory, Suen’s lead attorney John O’Malley expressed his satisfaction with the decision, but added: “Sheldon Adelson has unlimited resources by any definition of the term and he can keep this going until the state Supreme Court sustains the verdict. I think the court will do so this time and that Sheldon Adelson will finally have to pay his bill.”