Gov. Ralph DLG Torres confirmed over the weekend that casino operator Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC paid only a third of its $15-million annual license renewal fee.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was given an update from [the Commonwealth Casino Commission] and the [Office of the Attorney General] that they made\u2026[a] $5-million payment,\u201d he told Saipan Tribune in an interview Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe there is a procedure that CCC and the OAG is moving into what\u2026the regulation and law requires and we will be moving in that direction, based on what is allowed [for] us to do,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
With IPI \u201cdelinquent in their payment,\u201d Torres noted that his administration is right now in the process of determining a legal and proper response.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are procedures that need to be followed and this is [an example of a procedure]; they [IPI] are delinquent in their payment, and so there are going to be procedures that need to be done in order for us to\u2026give them due process,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n
CCC executive director Edward Deleon Guerrero previously told Saipan Tribune that he believes IPI also needs to pay an additional $502,000 on top of the $15 million after factoring in adjustments on the consumer price index as statutorily mandated.<\/p>\n
Saipan Tribune learned last week that IPI was delayed in paying for their annual casino license fee renewal payment of $15 million. This payment is on top of the annual $20 million Community Benefit Fund that\u2019s supposed to go to community projects.<\/p>\n
Saipan Tribune did reach out to Finance Secretary David Atalig for verification on IPI\u2019s payment but, at that time, he was unable to do so since there is usually a 24-hour to 48-hour delay for international wire transfers.<\/p>\n
\u201cDOF is aware a wire transfer has been made by the licensee and will verify once the transfer process is completed. International wire transactions usually take 23-48 hours to process. Once verified, DOF will provide notice to the CCC and the Office of the Attorney General,\u201d he previously told Saipan Tribune in a statement.<\/p>\n
IPI\u2019s deadline to pay their annual casino license renewal fee was Aug. 12, 2019.<\/p>\n
According to the casino license agreement, delayed, partial, or the non-payment of \u201c\u2026any amount due and payable\u201d within the casino license agreement constitutes a breach in the CLA.<\/p>\n
A breach in the CLA can result in a license suspension or even revocation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres confirmed over the weekend that casino operator Imperial Pacific International (CNMI)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306256","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\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}