Casino Tycoon Adelson, WSJ Settle Libel Suit -- WSJ
January 13 2017 - 3:02AM
Dow Jones News
By Lukas I. Alpert
The Wall Street Journal said Thursday a libel lawsuit brought by
billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson against one of its
reporters has been settled. The suit stemmed from a 2012 article
that described Mr. Adelson as "foul-mouthed."
Both sides agreed that the suit would be dismissed and that each
side would bear its own legal costs, a Journal spokeswoman said. No
money is being paid to settle the suit, she said. The article at
the heart of the suit will remain online unchanged.
A spokesman for Mr. Adelson's Las Vegas Sands Corp. had no
immediate comment.
The suit, filed in 2013, accused the Journal's
then-Hong-Kong-based Asia gambling-industry reporter, Kate
O'Keeffe, of libel, for a passage in which Mr. Adelson was
described as "a scrappy, foul-mouthed billionaire from
working-class Dorchester, Mass."
Mr. Adelson has said he isn't foul-mouthed.
A Journal spokeswoman said: "We are pleased that the parties
have agreed that the suit will be dismissed. The Journal and Ms.
O'Keeffe remain fully committed to continuing to provide fair and
accurate reporting in all matters, including in our coverage of Mr.
Adelson and his businesses."
The case was brought in Hong Kong, where the law makes it easier
for plaintiffs to win libel cases than in the U.S., in part, by
putting the burden on defendants to prove the truth of the
challenged statement.
But much of the four years of legal maneuvering played out
across the U.S. in several jurisdictions. The Journal took action
in U.S. federal courts to subpoena witnesses, including executives
at Las Vegas Sands and Mr. Adelson's former bodyguard and driver,
who could testify about whether he indeed was foul-mouthed.
The article that was the subject of the suit focused on a legal
battle between Mr. Adelson and the former CEO of his casino
operations in Macau. It was co-written with another reporter, but
only Ms. O'Keeffe was named in the suit.
The suit also didn't name the Journal or its publisher, Dow
Jones & Co., or parent company News Corp. The Journal defended
Ms. O'Keeffe in the suit.
Ms. O'Keeffe spent six years reporting on the gambling industry
from Hong Kong and wrote extensively about Mr. Adelson's Las Vegas
Sands Corp. She reported in-depth articles about Macau's casino
industry.
In court filings, the Journal said that after Mr. Adelson filed
the suit against Ms. O'Keeffe a Sands spokesman asked an editor at
the paper if Ms. O'Keeffe would be removed from the beat because,
in the spokesman's view, the legal proceeding meant she had a
conflict of interest.
Ms. O'Keeffe remained on the beat and was promoted to cover the
gambling industry globally. In January 2016, she relocated to the
Journal's Washington, D.C., bureau, where she now reports on
Chinese money and politics in the U.S. She declined to comment.
Write to Lukas I. Alpert at lukas.alpert@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 13, 2017 02:47 ET (07:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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