The Philippine Commission on Audit (COA) has questioned the legality of a casino land lease deal between Hong Kong-listed casino investor Landing International Development Ltd. (LIDL) and state-run Nayong Pilipino Foundation (NPF).

Politiko reported that the COA ordered NPF to cancel the contract it entered with LIDL’s subsidiary Landing Resorts Philippines Development Corp. (LRPDC) on grounds that it was detrimental to the government.

Based on its estimates, COA warned that the Philippine government will lose as much as PHP26 billion ($486.2 million) from the deal since LIDL will be underpaying the lease relative to the market value of the land at the nearby Solaire Resort and Casino.

COA pointed out that the monthly lease rate on the NPF land that both parties agreed upon was a PHP150 ($2.81) per square meter or PHP14.36 million ($268,532), way below Solaire lot’s value of PHP600 ($11.22) per square meter.