“Death plot” accusation rejected by Adelson
Las Vegas Sands Chairman Sheldon Adelson continued his testimony last week in the wrongful termination lawsuit filed against him by former Sands China CEO Steven Jacobs by attacking Jacobs’ allegations of a campaign to pressure Chinese authorities for special treatment of LVS.
In testimony, Adelson denied that his firing of Jacobs was what the plaintiff called an “exorcism strategy” to preserve his dominance over Sands China from Las Vegas. He fired Jacobs, he testified, because “he was an evil person, and I wanted him out without the dignity of resigning.”
Adelson blasted Jacobs in testimony: “The people that worked for him in Macau called him ‘the emperor.’ He was pompous. He was arrogant. He was condescending,” he said. “He thought that he was the be-it-all and the end-it-all. The man had no experience. He didn’t even work for the company for a year.”
Adelson also denied allegations by Jacobs’ attorney that he maintained a “contact with Beijing,” a Macau businessman named Ng Lap Seng who was Adelson’s go-between with a senior Chinese official. Jacobs has alleged he was fired for resisting pressure to pay bribes to Chinese officials for preferential treatment, through Macau legislator Leonel Alves. Ng is alleged to have been Alves’ contact in Beijing.
When Adelson was asked if he had ever met a Macau businessman named Ng Lap Seng, he said he had not, but had heard of him. When asked by Jacobs’ lawyer if he knew that Ng is known as a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee and that he had acted as “a courier” for Adelson’s company, Adelson replied, “I know of nobody in the company who had dealings with Ng.”
According to documents, an internal company email sent by Jacobs described Ng as having “delivered msg. from SGA”—Adelson’s initials. The email also identifies Ng as “Leonel’s contact with Beijing,” a reference to Alves.
Asked about a report Jacobs commissioned on Ng’s activities, Adelson replied, “There’s a lot of Ngs in Macau. It’s not as common as Kim or Park in Korea, but there’s a lot of Ngs.”
Adelson also was asked about a $700,000 payment for legal fees to Alves that he authorized, even though told by LVS lawyers it was far above normal rates and could violate U.S. anti-bribery laws. Adelson replied that he was only passing along a message a bout how much it would cost to settle such a case. “There was no bribery,” Adelson said. “It never happened. Companies like ours are getting offers from people every day. From India. From Russia. Yesterday from Kazakhstan.” He said he rejects such offers because they “smell of bribery.”
Adelson had to answer a few more outrageous accusations from the Jacobs camp, including a rumor of a plot to behead LVS employees in Macau if Chinese government promises were broken in relation to the Cotai Strip, along with alleged dealings with Hong Kong businessman Cheung Chi-tai, a junket operator identified as a high-ranking gang figure by the U.S. Senate.
Adelson objected to answering the question on the grounds that he never did business with Cheung, and said the allegations of death plots were manufactured by the plaintiff. “If somebody is going to chop my employees’ heads off, of course I would be interested,” he said. “But he wasn’t. And we weren’t doing business with him. It feeds their narrative of, ‘only Adelson is involved in wrongdoing, not Jacobs.’”
