The Las Vegas Sun filed a federal lawsuit against the Las Vegas Review-Journal and its owner Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino mogul. The charges allege unfair trade practices on the part of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Review-Journal attorney Benjamin Lipman dismissed the contentions as “baseless” and denied that the Review-Journal, the largest newspaper in Nevada, wants to kill its competition.
Brian Greenspun, head of The Sun, accuses the Review-Journal of trying to starve it of funds and violating a 30-year-old joint operating agreement that has the Sun printed and delivered as a section within the morning Review-Journal.
The complaint reads, “Unable to financially blot out the Sun, and tired of publishing his only rival, Adelson and the Review-Journal have recently filed a baseless and unlawful claim in Nevada state court seeking to terminate the JOA. Terminating the JOA would effectively kill the Sun.”
The federal lawsuit alleges the Review-Journal doesn’t allow the Sun to audit financial records and says the Sun has not received a profit payment based on the joint operating agreement since 2017. The Sun wants a federal judge to order the Review-Journal to stop “abusive, unlawful and anti-competitive practices” and divest itself from the newspaper, and to order the creation of an independent agency or trustee to oversee the non-editorial business of the joint operation.
The Sun and Review-Journal agreement was renegotiated in 2005 and is scheduled to remain in effect until 2040.
