In recent years, a series of former business associates have sued Sands for a portion of the soaring profits from the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau.
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Las Vegas Sands Corp. CEO Sheldon Adelson, left, walks into the courtroom with his wife Miriam before taking the witness stand Thursday in Las Vegas.
Adelson blazed a trail of casino riches in Asia after doing the same thing in Sin City as CEO of Las Vegas Sands.
In recent years, a series of former business associates have sued Sands for a portion of the soaring profits from the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau.
One such businessman, Richard Suen, claims he made it possible for the casino company to win a license in Macau by arranging meetings between executives and Beijing officials in 2001.
Sands lawyers say those meetings didn't help the company, because licenses are distributed by officials in Macau, not on the mainland.
On Thursday, Suen's attorneys called for a mistrial during the first hour of testimony by Adelson when he answered a question about Sands' qualifications to enter the Macau market by pulling out a handful of pamphlets put together by his convention business in the 1980s.
"We have a witness who is attempting to take over this courtroom," Suen attorney James Pisanelli said.
He said Adelson had stacked the pamphlets in a "dramatic fashion" that made an unforgettable impression on the jury.
Sands attorneys acknowledged knowing that Adelson wanted to bring in the brochures and said they had counseled him against it.
Judge Rob Bare declined to declare a retrial. He said the evidence was improperly introduced, but none of the lawyers were at fault.
Among Sands' holdings is Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, which was built on former Bethlehem Steel land along the Lehigh River.
Adelson arrived at the Las Vegas courthouse wearing a navy suit, blue tie and white shirt with his initials SJA embroidered on the cuff. The longtime supporter of Israel and the Republican Party made headlines last year when he became made the biggest political donation ever — nearly $100 million with his wife to help GOP candidates.
His wife, Miriam, led him into the courtroom and he approached the witness stand using a marble-handled cane.
Adelson has a condition known as peripheral neuropathy that makes it difficult for him to walk.
Suen's legal team argued that he shouldn't be escorted to the stand by a family member, as happened in a previous trial, because it would evoke undue sympathy among the jury.
Sands' lawyers have sought to limit media access to the mogul's testimony. The team brought in Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, a renowned advocate for open court proceedings, to help argue that press photos of Adelson's day in court could threaten the 79-year-old billionaire's security. That argument was rejected.
Adelson's testimony was expected to last at least two days.
It's the second time Suen and Sands have faced off in court over the Macau issue. In 2008, a jury awarded $58.6 million to Suen, but the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the verdict in 2010.
That court said the district judge shouldn't have allowed hearsay statements during the trial, and should have told the jury to assume Chinese officials were following local laws.
Buoyed in large part by his successes in Macau, Adelson has become the ninth-richest person in America, worth an estimated $26.5 billion, according to Forbes.
Asked on Thursday how many casinos he owns, Adelson paused and counted eight on his fingers. He later amended that to nine. When he met Suen, he owned just one casino — The Venetian on the Las Vegas Strip.
Suen, a former business partner of Adelson's brother, now seeks more than three times the amount he demanded in 2008.
He said he and his company were promised a $5 million success fee and 2 percent of net casino profits in exchange for helping Sands open its first casino in Macau in the world's biggest gambling market.
The case hinges on the role that personal relationships, or "guanxi," play in Chinese culture.
Suen's team argues that Sands needed to cultivate influence. But the casino countered that Suen is demanding a success fee for setting up a single 40-minute meeting with the mayor of Beijing.
On the stand, Adelson frequently pleaded memory loss. He said he could not remember whether he sent his second in command to meet with Suen in 2001, or recall the names of the people Suen arranged for him to meet.
"I'm not very good at Chinese names. I'm not always so good at English names," he said.