Las Vegas Review-Journal

Wynn Resorts drops claims against Okada

Move paves way for company to wrap up legal battle with Elaine Wynn

- By Todd Prince Las Vegas Review-journal

Wynn Resorts has dropped all claims against co-founder Kazuo Okada, opening the door wider for Chief Executive Officer Matt Maddox to bring to a quick close the bitter, six-year battle among shareholde­rs.

The Las Vegas-based company voluntaril­y withdrew claims of breach of fiduciary responsibi­lity against the Japanese businessma­n on Monday, according to Nevada court records.

Wynn Resorts filed suit in 2012 against Okada, then a Wynn board member, claiming he paid bribes to Philippine government officials and thus threatened the company’s reputation. The judge agreed to dismiss the case, bringing all litigation between Wynn Resorts, Okada and Universal Entertainm­ent Corp. to a close.

Monday’s move comes on the heels of Thursday’s surprise announceme­nt that Wynn Resorts will pay Universal $2.4 billion to end the fight over a 20 percent stake in the casino operator. Lawyers for Okada, who

WYNN

is not a party to that agreement, threatened Friday to file a temporary restrainin­g order to halt the deal. Okada refrained Monday from that action after Wynn Resorts dropped its claims against him.

Maddox, who took the helm after Steve Wynn stepped down Feb. 6 amid allegation­s of sexual harassment, has moved aggressive­ly to

clean up the company’s image and end the lawsuits.

Wynn Resorts has been mired in investigat­ions pertaining to those allegation­s while fighting Universal and Elaine Wynn.

Atthesamet­ime,thecompany­is pursuing expansion in Las Vegas, Boston, Macau and Japan.

Elaine Wynn’s case against Steve Wynn and Wynn Resorts is the remaining roadblock.

Steve Wynn sought to end his battle with his ex-wife two weeks ago, filing

a motion to invalidate their 2010 shareholde­r agreement.

However, a judge declined his motion because Universal was a party to that agreement.

With Universal out of the case, Wynn will again ask the judge on Friday to declare the shareholde­r agreement with his ex-wife invalid, permitting both to sell their shares.

Contact Todd Prince at 702 3830386 or tprince@reviewjour­nal.com. Follow @toddprince­tv on Twitter.

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