Kazuo Okada, the Japanese billionaire embroiled in a legal fistfight with former partner and chairman of Wynn Resorts, Steve Wynn, has filed a defamation lawsuit in Japan against the casino company and its officials.
Okada, who submitted the filing through his company Universal Entertainment, is claiming US$140 million (11.2 billion yen) in damages, alleging that Wynn’s actions led to a fall off in Universal’s stock price and new business opportunities, and damaged his reputation.
The filing is the latest skirmish in an eight-month-long saga, during which Okada and Wynn have also sued each other in the United States.
Universal, in a stock exchange statement, said it had filed the lawsuit before the Tokyo District Court.
Until this past winter, Okada was the largest shareholder in Wynn’s US$11 billion gambling empire, which has casinos in Las Vegas and Macau. He helped bankroll Wynn’s operations for more than a decade.
The two fell out publicly in January when Okada filed a lawsuit in the U.S. against Wynn for blocking access to financial documents relating to a US$135 million company donation to the University of Macau.