Kazuo Okada loses appeal in US$ 1 B claim against Wynn Macau

The lawsuit – put forward by Okada and two of his companies – claimed that between 2005 to 2008 Wynn Macau and Steve Wynn had ‘tortuously’ paid an amount of US$35 million to an undisclosed company in order to obtain the concession for a 200,000 square meters land plot in Cotai.

In addition, Mr. Okada also considered as ‘unjustified’ a commitment by Wynn Macau’s to donate US$135 million to the University of Macau’s Development Foundation during a ten year period, which he said went against the shareholders interests.

According to Okada, in a meeting held by Wynn’s Board of Directors on February 18, 2012, the board decided to deliberately proceed to the forced amortization of the shares on his name, directly causing him to lose his stake in the company and financial assets. Thus, Mr. Okada requested that Wynn Macau be liquidated.

Meanwhile, Mr. Okada also had claimed that Wynn Macau provided his personal data, in a violation of the Personal Data Protection Act, to a US investigative body in order to record his inappropriate activities in a report.

The Macau Office for Personal Data Protection (GPDP) fined Wynn Macau in 2012 some MOP20,000 (US$2,500) for two violations of the Personal Data Protection Act for leaking personal data to former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who had been hired to conduct an investigation on Okada.

That report, according to Mr. Okada, directly resulting in his expulsion in the Board of Directors’ Extraordinary meeting in February 2012, with causing an amount of MOP8.2 billion of property and non-property losses.

The TJB pointed out that the plaintiff lacked sufficient reasons to access the Court regarding the claim of dissolution, while indicating that the Court did not find that Wynn Macau was contrary to law, public order or morality.

Regard the claims of compensation, the TJB highlighted that there was no causal link between Wynn Macau’s alleged illegal acts and the plaintiff’s claims for damages.