The Superior Court has found a China cigarette manufacturer liable to pay $265,195.44 to the CNMI government for not complying with the local tobacco law.<\/p>\n
In a default judgment, Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert C. Naraja ordered Yuxi Hongta Tobacco (Group) Ltd., Yuxi Cigarette Factory to pay $198,896.58 in civil penalties plus interest at the rate of 9 percent per annum.<\/p>\n
Naraja directed the Yunnan, China-based Yuxi Hongta to pay the Attorney General his costs and fees incurred in this case.<\/p>\n
The judge ordered the cigarette manufacturer to establish within 15 days a \u201cqualified escrow fund\u201d and place into that fund $25,358.73 and $40,940.13 for calendar years 2001 and 2003.<\/p>\n
Yuxi Hongta is enjoined from selling its cigarettes in the CNMI, whether directly or through a distributor, retailer or similar intermediary unless and until it complies fully with the Commonwealth Tobacco Escow Statute, said Naraja in the order.<\/p>\n
Naraja said the tobacco manufacturer violated the Commonwealth Tobacco Escrow Statute, Public Law 12-45, as amended by P.L. 13-15 Section 3(B).<\/p>\n
The judge said such violations were \u201cknowing\u201d within the meaning of the law.<\/p>\n
The CNMI government, through Assistant Attorney General Brian Caldwell, filed the lawsuit in 2005 against Yuxi Hongta to compel the company to comply with Public Law 13-15, which requires tobacco product manufacturers to meet certain obligations.<\/p>\n
The government\u2019s lawsuit alleged that in November 1998, the CNMI, along with 46 states and four territories, entered into a settlement agreement with leading tobacco product manufacturers called the \u201cmaster settlement agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yuxi Hongta is considered a non-participating manufacturer, Caldwell said.<\/p>\n
Caldwell said pursuant to P.L. 13-15, for each cigarette that is sold in the CNMI, a non-participating manufacturer must deposit money, including an amount to adjust for inflation, into a qualified escrow fund.<\/p>\n
Caldwell said the defendant has not placed any monies into a qualified escrow fund pursuant to the Commonwealth Tobacco Escrow Statute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Superior Court has found a China cigarette manufacturer liable to pay $265,195.44 to the CNMI government for not complying with the local tobacco law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100765\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}