The Osaka Securities Exchange has requested information from Universal Entertainment Corp. related to its resort development activities in the Philippines.
The investigation, reported by the Financial Times, is the first by a Japanese regulator into millions of dollars in payments the listed gaming machine supplier made allegedly to secure favorable treatment for a resort casino it is developing in Manila. Philippine and US authorities are also looking into the payments.
Japan Exchange Group, the OSE’s holding company, declined to comment, the Times said.
Reuters first revealed the payments, totaling some US$40 million, late last year, claiming they were made to entities controlled by a Philippine businessman with close ties to the country’s gaming regulators and to former President Gloria Arroyo.
A Universal subsidiary was granted a license in 2008 to develop one of four casinos as part of a special resort district in the Philippine capital known as Entertainment City Manila.
Universal’s involvement in the Philippines has led to a highly publicized falling-out between Japanese billionaire Kazuo Okada, who controls the company, and his former partner and friend Steve Wynn, chairman of Wynn Resorts. Mr Okada was expelled as Wynn’s largest shareholder last February following two in-house investigations that claimed to have uncovered improprieties in Universal’s Philippines dealing. Wynn’s shareholders are scheduled to meet later this month to vote on whether to remove Mr Okada from the board of directors. He was removed as a director of the company’s Wynn Macau subsidiary last year.
Mr Okada is contesting his ouster from the company, and the feud is the subject of fierce litigation in US federal court and state court in Nevada. Mr Okada says the allegations are untrue and that he was removed for raising questions about Wynn Resorts’ own activities.
