A Macau court has ruled in favor of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. in its decade-long court battle with Marshall Hao Shi-sheng. The Taiwan businessman claimed his company was bilked out of billions of dollars when LVS reneged on a deal to seek a gaming concession in the Chinese territory.
According to GGRAsia, Hao and his firm Asian American Entertainment Corp. claimed they helped Sands secure a gaming license in Macau, but were later cut out of the deal. In the original claim, filed in 2012, Asian American asked for MOP3 billion (US$375 million) as compensation. In 2019, Hao’s company increased the claim to about US$12 billion, allegedly representing lost profits from 2004 to 2018. Later, lawyers for Hao said Asian American Entertainment was entitled to no less than US$7.5 billion for damages.
At an earlier stage of the tender process, in the early 2000s, Sands teamed up with Asian American for the Macau venture, then forged a partnership with Hong Kong entrepreneur Lui Che Woo via Galaxy Casino SA, now Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd. In December 2002, the Macau government allowed an amendment to Galaxy concession contract, and a subsidiary of Las Vegas Sands was granted a subconcession.
