Sands China Ltd. (Former Sands China President) has been slapped with minor sanctions by District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez for correcting information in certain documents related to the Steve Jacobs case. Earlier this week, a judge heard arguments from both sides of the Jacobs v. Sands case, which has been going on since 2010. Upon hearing the case's arguments, the judge ordered the Las Vegas Sands subsidiary to abandon the documents, donate $250,000 to various legal charities, and cover court costs.
The two sides tried to discuss what punishments should be imposed on Sands based on corrections to personal information from about 8,000 documents related to Jacobs vs. Sands. Jacob's lawyers pointed out that monetary sanctions don't mean much to the Sands company, which is worth billions of dollars.
Las Vegas Sands first claimed that despite Sands having already sent the same information to lawyers in Nevada, the documents Jacobs wanted could not be taken from Macau real estate due to privacy laws. The revelation resulted in a $25,000 fine for Sands. Sands was ordered to send the documents to lawyers representing Jacobs, and it became clear that the documents had been corrected.
At last week's hearing, Sands' lawyers argued they had no choice to correct their personal information in case they upset Macau authorities. Todd Bice, Jacobs' attorney, said Sands China spent nearly $2.4 million in the correction process, indicating that it was meaningless to evaluate purely monetary sanctions. Biss also said the company's intention is to 'send us all into the grave' given Las Vegas Sands' resources.