U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona has ruled that issuing an injunction in connection with Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC\u2019s lawsuit against the Commonwealth Casino Commission is in the public interest because questions of CNMI government\u2019s disclosure of confidential information are of public importance. <\/p>\n
IPI has raised serious questions that go to the merits of their complaint, said Manglona in a written order Thursday, extending the temporary restraining order that the Superior Court earlier granted in IPI\u2019s lawsuit.<\/p>\n
The TRO will now expire this Friday, Aug. 2.<\/p>\n
IPI sued CCC last month to prevent it from publicly disclosing IPI\u2019s audited financial information following Rep. Edwin Propst\u2019s (Ind-Saipan) Open Government Act request. Associate Judge Kenneth L. Govendo granted IPI\u2019s TRO request. <\/p>\n
Last week, CCC, through the Office of the Attorney General, moved to transfer IPI\u2019s complaint to the federal court.<\/p>\n
Last Thursday, Manglona heard IPI\u2019s motion to extend the TRO, CCC\u2019s opposition, and IPI\u2019s subsidiaries Grand Marianas (CNMI) LLC and Imperial Pacific Properties LLC\u2019s motion to join in IPI\u2019s motion to extend.<\/p>\n
Govendo\u2019s TRO directed CCC to refrain from releasing information requested pursuant to Open Government Act request it received.<\/p>\n
In finding cause to extend the TRO, Manglona said that, without an extension, the closeness in the removal of the case to the district court and the expiration of the TRO would prevent IPI from obtaining a decision on the merits of its case.<\/p>\n
Without the preliminary relief, Manglona said, irreparable harm to IPI is likely because the disclosure of confidential information cannot be undone.<\/p>\n
Manglona said the balance of equities tips sharply in IPI\u2019s favor because denial of the TRO would effectively moot IPI\u2019s case, whereas it only causes a delay to CCC.<\/p>\n
The judge said because there is no realistic likelihood of significant harm to CCC from having to refrain from disclosing the information at question, the court declined to require IPI to post security.<\/p>\n
The court will hear IPI\u2019s motion for a preliminary injunction for tomorrow, Tuesday, at 10:30am. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona has ruled that issuing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304797","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\/304797","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}