{"id":336968,"date":"2021-01-19T06:05:52","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T20:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=336968"},"modified":"2021-01-19T06:05:52","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T20:05:52","slug":"dotts-no-longer-ipi-general-counsel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/dotts-no-longer-ipi-general-counsel\/","title":{"rendered":"Dotts no longer IPI general counsel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Veteran lawyer Michael W. Dotts is no longer the general counsel of Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC, but is still the lawyer for IPI in a few cases.<\/p>\n

In response to Saipan Tribune\u2019s inquiry, Dotts said yesterday that his contract to work as IPI\u2019s general counsel expired on Dec. 31, 2020, and that he has not entered into a new contract with the company.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of my general counsel work actually stopped in early December when IPI was no longer able to pay me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dotts disclosed in May 2020 that he\u2019s providing general counsel services to IPI during the company\u2019s \u201ctransition time.\u201d He defined general counsel to mean representing the company in legal matters on \u201canything that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAn employee stealing something in the morning, there\u2019s an accident on the job site in the afternoon and the government wants to investigate\u2014anything that happens, you can call the attorney and address it,\u201d he had said.<\/p>\n

As for Donald Browne\u2019s resignation as IPI\u2019s chief executive officer, Dotts said even though he may have already resigned, he still has to appear in federal court this Thursday.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Michael W. Dotts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona has ordered Browne and IPI\u2019s chair Cui Li Jie to appear before the court this Thursday at 8:30am in connection with the U.S. Department of Labor\u2019s lawsuit against IPI.<\/p>\n

Manglona warned that failure to appear may result in the issuance of a bench warrant for the arrest of Cui and Browne.<\/p>\n

Dotts said Browne could be held in contempt, but the general rule is that a person cannot be held in contempt for violating a court order that they had no notice of. Dotts said his understanding is that Browne did not know there would be a settlement payment due to the U.S. Department of Labor worth over $1 million on Dec. 1, 2020.<\/p>\n

He said the consent judgment also required IPI to comply with federal labor laws and not paying workers is a violation of those laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut based on Donald Browne\u2019s declaration, he believed all the workers would be paid by Christmas. He did not intend a violation,\u201d Dotts said.<\/p>\n

IPI has been placed on independent monitoring in connection with then-U.S. Labor secretary R. Alexander Acosta\u2019s lawsuit in federal court against IPI for alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act over the construction of its casino\/resort project in Garapan.<\/p>\n

To resolve the lawsuit, IPI and Acosta agreed to an entry of a consent judgment in April 2019. IPI agreed to pay a total of $3.36 million, which is composed of $1.58 million in back wages, another $1.58 million in liquidated damages, and $200,000 in civil penalties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Veteran lawyer Michael W. Dotts is no longer the general counsel of Imperial Pacific International…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":336969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[12497],"class_list":["post-336968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-ipi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336968","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=336968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}