The NMI Retirement Fund\u2019s arguments in its opposition to the motions to dismiss its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case change the focus from the proper issue, according to the U.S. Trustee for the District of the CNMI.<\/p>\n
In particular, Assistant U.S. Trustee Curtis Ching took issue with the Fund\u2019s argument that it does not perform a \u201ctraditional government function.\u201d<\/p>\n
This contention incorrectly attempts to divert the legal standard away from whether the Fund is an \u201cinstrumentality\u201d of the CNMI to whether the Fund is a \u201cmunicipality,\u201d said Ching in the Trustee\u2019s reply to the Fund\u2019s response to the motions to dismiss the bankruptcy petition.<\/p>\n
The Fund\u2019s objection, Ching said, overlooks the decision in the Pangelinan vs. Fund case in which the CNMI Supreme Court held that the Fund is a \u201cgovernmental entity\u201d that is entitled to sovereign immunity.<\/p>\n
Ching pointed out that since only the sovereign can claim sovereign immunity, the CNMI Supreme Court\u2019s ruling puts to rest the issue of whether the Fund is a \u201cgovernmental unit\u201d that is entitled to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.<\/p>\n
Attorney Bruce Jorgensen\u2019s group, the counsel for two unnamed retirees, first brought up the motion to dismiss on the ground that the Fund\u2019s structure and statutory existence makes it a \u201cgovernmental unit\u201d of the CNMI.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Trustee made a similar motion, followed by two retirees and members of the NMI Retirement, former Tinian senator Esteven M. King, the CNMI government itself, and the Commonwealth Ports Authority, all essentially citing the same grounds.<\/p>\n
Fund counsel Braddock J. Huesman insists that the Fund is not a governmental unit and the federal court should not dismiss its Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition.<\/p>\n
In the U.S. Trustee\u2019s reply yesterday, Ching said the Fund is an \u201cinstrumentality of\u2026a Commonwealth\u201d and so is a \u201cgovernmental unit\u201d excluded from Chapter 11 eligibility.<\/p>\n
Ching said the Fund serves a very basic governmental purpose\u2014to fulfill the constitutional requirement of providing a retirement system for government workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe CNMI created the [Fund] and enacted detailed legislation for the purpose of fulfilling Article 3, Section 20 of the CNMI Constitution. As such, it is instrumentality of the CNMI,\u201d Ching added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The NMI Retirement Fund\u2019s arguments in its opposition to the motions to dismiss its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case change the focus from the proper issue, according to the U.S. Trustee for the District of the CNMI.<\/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-161537","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\/161537","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=161537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161537\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}