District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez has ordered hefty sanctions against Las Vegas Sands subsidiary Sands China Ltd. for improperly withholding documents in an ongoing wrongful termination lawsuit.
In an order filed Friday, Gonzalez told the attorneys to surrender the documents, pay $250,000 to various legal charities and cover significant court costs incurred by plaintiff Steven Jacobs, the former president of Sands Macau. She previously ruled that failure to turn over the documents violated Jacobs’ rights.
Jacobs’ lawyer, Todd Bice, said the judge was trying to “level the playing field” by handing down the penalties.
“We’ll see whether or not they want to change their course of conduct,” he said.
In what Bice called one of the more significant sanctions, the judge also restricted Sands China Ltd. from calling any of its own witnesses during a hearing on jurisdiction.
“We are disappointed in the court’s decision and do not believe it is supported by the evidence,” Ron Reese, a spokesman for Las Vegas Sands Corp., wrote in an email in response to the 41-page ruling. “Sands China intends to seek review from a higher court.”
Gonzalez had previously ruled that Sands China violated her September 2012 order in the case by redacting the documents. The subsidiary’s “ongoing noncompliance is incompatible with and undermines the search for truth,” Gonzalez wrote Friday, calling the company’s lack of transparency “highly problematic.”
Jacobs sued Las Vegas Sands Corp. and Sands China in 2010 for breach of contract related to his termination and had asked the defendants to turn over about 100,000 emails and other documents. He sought the emails and documents to show that decisions made in Las Vegas controlled Sands China on many subjects. Included in the list was the allegation that Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson had personally approved a “prostitution strategy” for Macau, which Adelson and the company deny.
A United States court has ordered Macau’s biggest casino operator to hand over sensitive documents it has been accused of withholding improperly as part of a wrongful termination lawsuit involving a former senior executive.
Nevada District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez also ordered Sands China, which operates the Venetian in Macau, to pay US$250,000 to legal charities and cover significant court costs incurred by Steven Jacobs, the former president of Sands Macau with whom it is in dispute.
Todd Bice, a lawyer for the former executive, said the judge’s order was an attempt to “level the playing field” in the legal tussle.
Sands China said it was disappointed by the court’s decision and did not believe it was supported by the evidence.
Ron Reese, a spokesman for Las Vegas Sands, said: “Sands China intends to seek review from a higher court”, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Gonzalez had previously ruled that Sands China violated her September 2012 order in the case by redacting the various documents.
The first medical marijuana dispensary in Nevada is yet to open, but the lawsuits are already flying as applicants jockey for a starting position in the state’s green gold rush.
GB Sciences Nevada LLC, a company that won city approval for a Las Vegas dispensary but missed the cut on state licensing, has filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s rankings. The state also faces a lawsuit from seven dispensary applicants hoping to open in unincorporated Clark County who gained county approval but not state approval.
Industry observers say the lawsuits won’t stop the medical marijuana boom, but deal a setback that will slow the expansion of the industry at a critical juncture.
Much is at stake for Nevada’s would-be medical pot barons: Entry into the lucrative field is limited and competitive, and the possibility of legalized recreational use could fuel the industry’s future growth.
The Nevada industry’s entry into the courtroom mirrors what has happened elsewhere in the United States as medical marijuana started, including neighboring Arizona.
“My opinion is it’s not good for the industry,” said John Laub, president of the Las Vegas Medical Marijuana Association, of the lawsuits. “I’m not happy with it.”
On Friday, lawyers for the seven applicants who won approval from Clark County but not the state asked a judge to order the state to reconsider.
Todd L. Bice was born and raised in the farming community of Winner, S.D. The town was named Winner because it won a contest to have the railroad pass through town, he said.
Bice went to the University of South Dakota before completing law school at the University of Nebraska. After law school he moved to Las Vegas and began working. Today he is co-founding partner in the law firm of Pisanelli Bice in downtown Las Vegas.
Q. It appears most of your practice is dedicated to commercial, land and zoning, mergers and acquisitions, and gaming. What drew you to focus your career and your practice to these areas?
Our firm is principally and almost exclusively a litigation firm. All those other subject matters that your referencing, we get involved, our firm gets involved in those types of matters when there’s some sort of a contested dispute, whether in court, arbitration, something like that. So that is our exclusive area of practice: litigation or dispute resolution. I ended up in those areas of practice when I moved here (as a young lawyer). I worked for Frank Schreck for nearly 20 years. Frank is probably one of the pre-eminent gaming lawyers in the world. And as a consequence … that’s the sort of work that you just naturally gravitate into because that was the type of work that Frank was bringing to the firm, and bringing to me and others, as young lawyers. So that’s the practice we’d develop and the expertise that we’d develop. So it’s really a byproduct of working for Frank for 20 years.
Q. What does it mean to you to have your firm receive five Tier 1 rankings in the U.S. News-Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” 2015?
I think its evidence of the type of work that we do and the type of people that we have here. You don’t get those sorts of accomplishments by not doing good work for clients because those (rankings) … are largely a product of client interviews and client assessments. We take a great deal of pride in the fact that our clients think highly of the services that we provide.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Nevada Supreme Court could decide as early as Monday whether a judge in Reno or one in Las Vegas should hear a bid by state taxi regulators and limousine firms to block ride-sharing company Uber Technologies from operating in the state.
The high court received written arguments from both sides last week on an expedited schedule that would allow the justices to rule before a court hearing set Tuesday in Reno. Washoe County District Court Judge Scott Freeman is scheduled to decide whether to extend a temporary order he issued last month to stop Uber from doing business in the state.
“There is no reason, nor would it be appropriate, for both the case in Clark County and the case in Washoe County to move forward simultaneously,” said attorney Donald Campbell, representing Uber.
The state attorney general’s office and a lawyer representing Bell Limo and Whittlesea Checker Taxi argued that although the Nevada Transportation Authority sought restraining orders in courts in Reno, Carson City and Las Vegas, written documents were submitted first to Freeman. The Carson City case was later consolidated with the Washoe County case.
