Billionaire and casino owner Sheldon Adelson testified in court on Friday, as former CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp. subsidiary Sands China had accused the gambling operator of being involved in illegal activities.
Steven Jacobs, former CEO of Sands China, claimed that he was wrongfully fired back in 2010, due to the fact that he objected to payments to a high-standing Macau official, as those might have been considered violation of the US anti-bribery laws.
Furthermore, the former executive suggested that Mr. Adelson’s company was related to the triads, one of the many branches of Chinese organized crime.
The owner of Las Vegas Sands said on Friday that Mr. Jacobs’ claims were groundless and accused him of tarnishing the reputation of the gambling company by placing wrongful accusations in media.
It seems, however, that Mr. Adelson was not willing to reveal more information about the activities of the casino operator, as he gave evasive answers to James Pisanelli, the lawyer who represented Mr. Jacobs in court. At some point, the casino mogul was even warned by Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez that he could not argue with her, after he did not acknowledge the ownership of a certain email, which was presumably signed by him.
Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire founder and chairman of Las Vegas Sands Corp., said the man he fired almost five years ago as the head of his casinos in Macau was a “very strange man” who almost detroyed the company.
Adelson, 81, testified Tuesday for the first time in open court about his conflict with Steven Jacobs, who was fired in 2010 as chief executive officer of Sands China Ltd. and who has accused his former boss of requiring him to do “outrageous” and “illegal” things, including collecting compromising information on Macau government officials.
“I didn’t trust anything that came out of Jacobs,” Adelson told a Las Vegas judge, adding that Jacobs’s wrongful-termination lawsuit has validated his distrust. “He tried to go behind my back and report to different members of the board so he wouldn’t have to report to me.”
Adelson, under questioning from James Pisanelli, one of Jacobs’s lawyers, said he should have fired Jacobs sooner because he “tried to kill the company” by unilaterally deciding to cut out the junket operators who control the supply of high-end gamblers that account for 60 to 70 percent of the gaming revenue in the former Portuguese colony.
No one has ever described Sheldon Adelson as a man happy with the world. Happy billionaires do not spend tens of millions of dollars trying to get Newt Gingrich elected president.
But it took a hearing in a Las Vegas courtroom to lay bare an unexpected target for the casino magnet’s ire along with Adelson’s more regular hostility to the “socialist” Obama, pot smokers and Palestinians.
The word’s eighth-richest man is no fan of other rich people. Or at least the “greedy” executive class raking in millions of dollars with what Adelson called “outrageous” bonuses and stock options that so disgusted supporters of the Occupy movement. High on that list are his own executives.
LAS VEGAS – James J. Pisanelli and Todd L. Bice, founding partners of the litigation firm Pisanelli Bice PLCC, announced the firm has received five Tier 1 metropolitan rankings by U.S. News – Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” in 2015.
Pisanelli Bice received a Tier 1 ranking for five practice areas in Las Vegas, including Commercial Litigation, Litigation – Construction, Litigation – Land Use & Zoning, Litigation – Mergers & Acquisitions, and Litigation – Real Estate. The firm also received a Tier 2 ranking in Litigation – First Amendment.
In order to be eligible to receive a U.S. News – Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” ranking, a firm must have at least one attorney who has received a high enough peer review to be listed in the current edition of Best Lawyers. Firms are eligible in the practice areas and metropolitan areas in which they have listed lawyers.
The “Best Law Firms” rankings are based on a rigorous evaluation process based on client feedback, information provided by a Law Firm Leaders Survey, and the evaluations of 52,488 individual leading lawyers collected by Best Lawyers in its most recent annual survey.
James Pisanelli and Todd Bice started their law firm, Pisanelli Bice, four years ago and have quickly risen to prominence in the Las Vegas Valley and internationally. Among the cases they are handling are the well-publicized dispute between Wynn Resorts and former board director Kazuo Okada, as well as a wrongful termination case brought by the former CEO of Sands China. Pisanelli says he owes his firm’s success to the cultures of teamwork and service fostered within it.
What is the best business advice you’ve received, and whom did it come from?
Two things: The first came from our former partner and lifelong friend, Frank Schreck. From the time we were very young associates working for Frank to the last days of our partnership with him, Frank always implored us to surround ourselves with smart people. Not only did we have the comfort as young lawyers of being surrounded by smart, experienced people who could help us with any given problem on any given day, but we were also constantly challenged to elevate our practice and thinking to a higher level.
Todd Bice and I brought that philosophy to our new firm. We hand-picked every member of the firm and continue to challenge and elevate one another. It is a remarkable experience to be challenged on a daily basis as the senior member of a firm in the same manner I was challenged as one a member of Frank’s firm.
