A more than a five-year US Department of Justice probe into Las Vegas Sands’ promotional activity in Macau and China has been concluded after the casino operator agreed to pay a $7-million penalty.
The major casino company was investigated for allegedly breaching a federal anti-bribery law by making payments to a consultant it had retained to promote its gambling offering in Macau and China.
As settlement filings read, the consultant received the amount $60 million for promotional purposes over a three-year period (from 2006 to 2009) and another $5.8 million, which Las Vegas Sands has failed to provide a “discernible legitimate business purpose” for.
According to investigators, the casino operator had tried to mask its efforts to acquire a Chinese basketball team and a Beijing-located building by transferring the finances in question to the consultant. Under Chinese laws, gambling companies are not allowed to own teams in the local Basketball Association.
People with knowledge of the matter pointed out that the penalty imposed on Las Vegas Sands was 25% lower than the maximum required by US federal laws. The DoJ spared the casino owner due to the latter’s openness to cooperation over the course of the investigation.
The involved parties signed on Thursday a non-prosecution agreement, under which Las Vegas Sands admitted its failure to establish the necessary accounting controls and thus provide adequate evidence that the payments made were legally grounded.
The DoJ has not been the only federal office to have pointed the finger at Las Vegas Sands. Last year, the US Securities and Exchange Commission imposed a $9-million fine upon the casino developer and operator in relation to its business with the above-mentioned consultant. The SEC, too, scolded the company for its poor records of how exactly the funds for its Macau and China promotion campaigns had been allocated.
Headquartered in Las Vegas and chaired by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, Las Vegas Sands is one of the major players on the global land-based casino scene. The company owns multiple properties, including casinos and integrated resorts, in Las Vegas, Bethlehem (Pennsylvania), Macau, and Singapore. It generated revenue of $8.3 billion during the nine months ended September 30, 2016. Revenue from casino operations represented the greater portion of the amount reported for said period, totaling $6.4 billion.
