Casino Tycoon Adelson, WSJ Settle Libel Suit -- WSJ

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 [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 13, 2017 02:47 ET (07:47 GMT)

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