GGRAsia – Genting gets time to respond to Wynn’s Vegas suit

Genting gets time to respond to Wynn’s Vegas suit

Jan 14, 2019 Newsdesk Latest News, Top of the deck, World

Malaysian casino firm Genting Bhd said in a Friday filing one of its units had been granted – the previous day – more time by a court in Nevada in the United States to respond to a December 21 lawsuit. The suit from Wynn Resorts Ltd alleges Resorts World Las Vegas LLC copied the architectural look of Wynn Las Vegas for the Resorts World Las Vegas project.

A Wynn Resorts motion for an injunction – applied for on December 27 – to stop work on the Genting site, is not yet under consideration by the U.S. District Court, according to the Genting filing on the matter to Bursa Malaysia.

The filing said the injunction bid sought to bar “further installation or construction of the curved, bronze windows or horizontal banding” that – according to Wynn Resorts’ side – “constitute a portion of the unique and famous Wynn design,” at the Genting site. The construction plot is across the road from Wynn Las Vegas and Encore Las Vegas.

Wynn Resorts, the parent of Macau casino operator Wynn Macau Ltd, is said to be seeking exemplary and punitive damages due to – as the original suit reportedly described it – the Resorts World Las Vegas scheme allegedly “violating plaintiff’s copyrights in addition to plaintiff’s registered and common-law trade dress”.

Genting said in its Friday filing on the matter to the Malaysian bourse: “Construction activity at the project site continues and remains on track.”

The Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper stated – in an article updated late on Friday – quoting detail from Genting’s response to the Wynn Resorts complaint – that a project stoppage proposed in a motion for an injunction might cost the project promoters an estimated US$169 million and result in 500 construction workers being instantly laid off, were the court to grant the measure.

The Genting response to the suit also indicated that any additional construction delays could push back the advent of 3,000 permanent jobs once the property opens.

“Upon completion, Resorts World Las Vegas will look dramatically different from Wynn’s properties, dispelling any suggestion that a reasonable consumer could confuse the two resorts for each other,” the promoters reportedly said in their response to Wynn Resorts, as quoted by the news outlet.

But Wynn Resorts said in an email sent to the Review-Journal: “Resorts World’s newly-created exterior renderings, dated 2019 and well after the filing of our complaint, are merely drawings which do not reflect the actual construction directly across the street from our resort.”

Wynn Resorts added: “We will continue to pursue our legal claims and injunctive relief in this matter.”

Genting Americas Inc has previously described Resorts World Las Vegas as a “multibillion-dollar integrated resort,” that is designed to appeal to Chinese and other East Asian gamblers. Recently it has not specified a budget for the project. Investment analysts have mentioned a US$4-billion price tag.