Sheldon Adelson has to testify in a big court case against him and 'there's going to be mudslinging'

It looks like Las Vegas Sands' chief executive Sheldon Adelson is headed to court.

Bloomberg's Edvard Pettersson reports that Adelson has been named as a witness for the first time in the ongoing lawsuit launched by Steven Jacobs, the former head of the company's Macau unit.

Jacobs alleges that the billionaire CEO personally approved of prostitution at the Macau casino and demanded he help blackmail high-ranking Macau officials.

"There's going to be mudslinging," said one lawyer interviewed by Bloomberg. "You can bet your bottom dollar that Jacobs is going to bring up stuff that is uncomfortable for Sands China and for Adelson in particular."

One major claim is that someone ordered private investigations be conducted into Macau officals to gather information that could be used as leverage "leverage." Whether or not that happened is not even in question - it's a matter of who ordered it. (Jacobs says Adelson asked him to dig up information; Adelson says he didn't know anything about it.)

Another claim is that the company preferred to use prostitution as a business strategy even though Jacobs tried to ban it from the casino.

The case has been ongoing for four and a half years and Adelson has publicly stated he doesn't want to settle out of court.

Interesting that the casino company even chose the phrase "Never Settle" as a rallying point in a new advertising campaign featuring David Beckham:

Sounds like Adelson will battle this one to the end.

Read the full story on Bloomberg »