Kazuo Okada has hit back hard at Wynn Resorts with a report blasting the investigation that resulted in his ouster from the company as “deeply flawed, one-sided” and “seemingly advocacy-driven”.
The 45-page document commissioned by Mr Okada and compiled by former US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff claims the in-house investigation launched in 2011 by Wynn’s board and conducted under the direction of former FBI Director Louis Freeh “cherry-picked evidence” in order to obtain conclusions “that would be helpful to the Wynn Resorts board” in building a case against Mr Okada, who at the time was a director of the company and its largest individual shareholder.
He claims the Freeh group “viewed itself as an advocate first and an impartial investigator second” and said the new report “confirms what I have maintained since the Freeh report was issued. … It’s obvious that the biased report was part of Steve Wynn’s campaign to eliminate me as a rival to his power within Wynn Resorts.’’
Mr Chertoff, a former assistant US attorney general and US Court of Appeals judge, headed the Department of Homeland Security under the Bush administration from February 2005 to January 2009. He is currently a member of the Washington, D.C., power law firm of Covington & Burling.
His findings are the latest salvo in a nasty US court battle between the two billionaires that was touched off when the Wynn board, armed with Freeh’s report, voted last February to forcibly redeem Mr Okada’s 20% stake in the company at a substantial discount.
The company alleges that Mr Okada was engaging in misconduct in the course of developing a competing resort casino in the Philippines that included improper gifts to government officials. He was accused of breaching his fiduciary trust as a Wynn director and of putting the company at risk of violating US anti-bribery laws. He was subsequently removed from the boards of Wynn and its Hong Kong-listed casino subsidiary, Wynn Macau.
Mr Okada denies the charges and is contesting the buyout. He contends he was ousted for opposing Mr Wynn over a $135 million endowment the company made in 2011 to the University of Macau and for questioning other expenditures related to the development of the Macau casino.
The business activities of Mr Okada and companies he controls are under investigation by US and Philippine authorities. Wynn’s University of Macau donation is also the subject of a federal investigation in the US.
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