The Philippines officials have repeatedly recommended the investigation, concerning the accusation of Universal Entertainment Corp. of bribery, to be stopped.
Last Monday, executives of the corporation, owned by Kazuo Okada, made an announcement that the Philippines Prosecutor General has already submitted a request to the Secretary of Justice for terminating the investigation.
According to Universal’s officials, the arguments that their company had attempted to offer bribes to the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation are simply groundless and there is not a convincing proof that they have participated in such kind of illegal activities.
People with considerable knowledge on the matter hurried up to remind that a subsidiary of Universal Entertainment is about to open a luxurious resort casino on the territory of Manila Entertainment City. The project was estimated to cost $2 billion.
In addition, it became clear that a few years ago, Universal had funneled a great amount of money to an associate of the former chairman of PAGCOR Efraim Genuino. Apparently, their aim was to acquire land-concessions and establish their casino in Manila.
These facts brought about the local law enforcement and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation was involved in the matters as well.
And now, Universal representatives claim that after an investigation procedure that has taken a year, the National Bureau of Investigation and the National Prosecution Service did not succeed in finding convincing evidence.
Their final report, issued at the end of September 2014, concludes that there was not sufficient evidence for accusing Universal of bribery.
An official confirmation and approval of the report was received on Dec.10th during a meeting of the Games and Amusements Committee of the House of Representatives.
During the meeting in question, a representative of the National Bureau of Investigation was asked about the investigation, concerning Universal and the lack of evidence was officially confirmed.
In addition, Universal announced that two weeks ago, a decision, concerning the prosecution of Okada, was made. The owner of Universal will not be kept responsible and therefore, prosecuted because of the complaint submitted to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office. In other words, Okada will not be among the foreign officials, accused of bribery related to the Philippines affair.
However, there was another decision made on Dec.16th, which disappointed Universal’s officials.
The Tokyo prosecutors decided to halt the procedures against Steve Wynn and Shunsuke Yamaoka. Universal accused the CEO of Wynn Resorts and the representative director of Access Journal of defamation.
The reason was the lack of evidence for proceeding with the charges.
Okada used to be the largest shareholder of Wynn Resorts until 2012 when his shares were redeemed and Wynn claimed that Okada had tried to provide PAGCOR executives with illegal perks and get his Manila casino resort approved and supported by them.
Wynn’s accusations caused a number of lawsuits in Asia and America to be filled but two years later, most of them are pending.
