Sands China Ltd. was slapped with minor sanctions by District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez for redacting information from specific documents which were in relation to the Steve Jacobs, (former President of Sands China) wrongful termination lawsuit. Earlier this week, the judge  heard arguments from both sides of the case, Jacobs v. Sands, which has been ongoing since 2010. After hearing the arguments in the case, the judge ordered the Las Vegas Sands subsidiary  to surrender the documents, donate $250,000 to various legal charities and cover  court costs.

Both sides tried to argue what avenue of punishment should be imposed on the Sands based on the redacting of personal data from close to 8,000 documents that were in relation to the Jacobs versus Sands case. Jacob’s attorneys noted that monetary sanctions mean little to the multi-billion dollar Sands corporation.

The Las Vegas Sands had first claimed that the documents Jacobs wanted could not be taken from the Macau property due to Personal Data Protection Act of the region, although the Sands had already sent the same information to their attorneys in Nevada. This revelation was what spurred the judge to fine the Sands $25,000. The Sands was ordered to have the documents sent to the attorneys representing Jacobs’ and this is when said redactions became apparent.

During the hearing this past week, the attorneys for the Sands argued that that did not have any choice to redact personal info in case they upset the authorities in Macau. Todd Bice, the attorney for Jacobs’ stated that the process of redaction cost the Sands China close to $2.4m and this demonstrated the futility of assessing purely monetary sanctions. Bice also stated that given the resources of the Las Vegas Sands, the intention of the company was to ‘spend us all into the grave’.