Questions have been raised about the health of Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson as the start date looms for a trial in Clark County District Court that could cost the company millions of dollars in damages.

It is unclear whether Adelson, 85, will be able to testify in the civil lawsuit brought by Hong Kong businessman Richard Suen, who has been seeking compensation from the gaming giant since 2004 over the assistance he claims to have provided Adelson and the company in landing a lucrative concession to operate casinos in Macau in the early 2000s.

Adelson, who is the largest shareholder in Las Vegas Sands, missed the company’s fourth quarter earnings conference call with analysts on Jan. 23 because he was “a little bit under the weather,” Las Vegas Sands President Rob Goldstein said at the call’s outset. A gaming source said Adelson did not attend nor participate in the company’s January board meeting associated with the call.

But comments made in open court ahead of the Suen case paint a different picture.

On Monday, during a hearing on whether Adelson would have to sit for a deposition, Las Vegas lawyer Jim Jimmerson, one of the attorneys representing Las Vegas Sands, told District Judge Rob Bare that the CEO hasn’t been seen at the company’s corporate offices since Christmas.

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