Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman Sheldon Adelson said his Singapore casino is ready to settle “any day they want” with the lawyers’ group that accused it of using their conference to hasten its gaming license.

“We much rather make love than war,” Adelson said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Singapore. “We tried to settle with them; they didn’t want to and were quite unreasonable.”

 

Marina Bay Sands sued the lawyers after they withheld payment for the first conference it hosted. IPBA 2010 Pte, on behalf of the Inter-Pacific Bar Association conference, countersued for misrepresenting a “complete disaster” as a world-class venue. Sands used the attendance of Singapore Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew at the event to speed up its casino and occupation permits, according to the IPBA lawsuit.

 

“People should know that there will be little glitches in an opening of a new property,” said Adelson, 77, who’s in Singapore for the grand opening of the casino resort today. “They couldn’t stand even one glitch.”

 

Delegates at the conference complained of unfinished rooms, power failures, closed facilities and lost luggage, and the Bar Association’s annual general meeting discussed an “unprecedented” motion empowering it to sue Sands, according to IPBA’s lawsuit.

 

The IPBA organizing committee said in an e-mailed statement today that Sands has never formally apologized for the problems encountered during the conference.

 

Marina Bay Sands executive George Tanajisevich met IPBA President Lee Suet Fern once after the conference and didn’t make any settlement offer, the committee said. Lee, the daughter-in-law of Lee Kuan Yew, chaired the conference.

 

“Since then we have not heard from Sands except through their lawsuit and sound bites to the media,” according to the statement.

 

The conference was held May 2-5, only days after Las Vegas Sands opened parts of the US$5.5 billion ($7.63 billion) resort. The resort was originally scheduled to open at the end of 2009.

 

“We never would have sued them if they didn’t return the checks,” Adelson said. “I don’t know about in Singapore but in the U.S. it’s a criminal offense to return a check or to write a check that you don’t intend to cover.”

 

Sands halted projects in Macau and Las Vegas during the 2008 financial crisis and focused on the Singapore complex. Singapore lifted a four-decade ban on casinos in 2005 to help attract 17 million visitors and collect annual tourism revenue of $30 billion by 2015.

 

“Now believe me, we make every effort,” Adelson said. “We send employees in to live in the rooms, to try out the toilets, sinks, lights, drapes, to make sure everything is working as it’s supposed to and that’s what we did. But in any new property and in any ongoing property, you always have something that happens.”

 

Las Vegas Sands closed down 3.7% yesterday at $26.04 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The S&P 500 index was down 1.6%.

 

The case is Marina Bay Sands Pte Ltd. vs IPBA 2010 Singapore Pte Ltd. S348/2010 in the Singapore High Court.