The battle between the past and current controllers of the Okada Manila integrated resort (IR) in the Philippines’ Entertainment City now rests with the country’s Court of Appeals.
In a statement filed on August 17, the Philippine Supreme Court declined to overturn the status quo ante order (SQAO) issued in April that restored control of the resort to Japanese gaming tycoon Kazuo Okada. Instead, it referred the case to appeals.
Five years ago, Okada was accused of embezzlement and was ousted from the companies he founded: parent Universal Entertainment Corp., and subsidiary Tiger Resort Asia Ltd. (TRAL), which owns IR operator Tiger Resort Leisure and Entertainment Inc. (TRLEI). Since then, he has been trying to regain control, and eventually returned to power after the SQAO.
The ousted board says Okada and his allies forcibly occupied the IR in a hostile takeover on May 31. The members claim they were “illegally and violently” ejected through “brute force and intimidation to compel key legitimate officers to vacate the premises.”
They said Okada cronies Tonyboy Cojuangco, Dindi Espeleta and lawyer Florencio Herrera III stormed a ballroom in the IR with at least 50 private guards, police officers and a sheriff and evicted TRLEI Director Hajime Tokuda and other executives.
Lawyer Estrella Elamparo, who represents the TRLEI board, said, “While we were having the stockholders’ meeting, they all of sudden turned off the electricity… and the guards swooped down on the ballroom and forcibly evicted us.” She said Tokuda was taken “physically from his chair and forced … down the lobby and into an unknown vehicle and was brought eventually to his house … This was kidnapping that happened right in front of our eyes.”
In a statement, the ousted board said, “There is nothing in the (SQAO) which remotely authorizes Mr. Kazuo Okada to take over the premises of the corporation, much less with the use of force.”
Okada’s side insists the transfer was not only legal but orderly and nonviolent, carried out “together with the sheriff and witnessed by PAGCOR,” the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., which regulates gaming in the country.
They said they were within their rights due to the SQAO, which directed Okada’s “immediate reinstatement as shareholder, director, chairman and CEO” of Tiger Resort, and the reinstatement of the board as it existed before Okada got the boot, in 2017. The restored board appointed Cojuangco as president and Espeleta as vice chairman.
In an August 10 finding, the Supreme Court said the SQAO “was properly issued in accordance with law and jurisprudence,” but disputed some contentions of the ousted board, including that the takeover caused a “chilling effect on foreign investments and alleged serious damage to shareholders.”
The court conceded that any SQAO “must be implemented strictly based on the language of the order and in the context of the nature of an SQAO, i.e., to restore the parties to the last, actual, peaceable and uncontested state of things that preceded the controversy.”
The court added, “Disruption is never the intent of the SQAO.”
Meanwhile, the former board is demanding that three Okada Manila officers return PHP122 million (US$2.2 million) in casino cage money used to pay a construction company linked to Dindo Espeleta. The officers used the cage money after the IR’s bank accounts were frozen.
Kenshi Asano, TRAL representative and director of Universal Entertainment, spoke for the ousted board when he said, “We, the investors in Okada Manila, are respectfully asking the honorable Supreme Court to hasten the resolution of the intra-corporate dispute in our multibillion-dollar investment.”
TRAL has offered a reward to Okada Manila employees “who can provide information that leads to the recovery of any funds that are released from Okada Manila or improperly paid to other third parties under the management of the self-appointed board.”
