{"id":403921,"date":"2024-01-31T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=403921"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"IPI-CCC-making-progress-in-settlement-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/IPI-CCC-making-progress-in-settlement-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"IPI, CCC \u2018making progress\u2019 in settlement talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Commonwealth Casino Commission and Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC are reportedly engaged in settlement talks and are \u201cmaking progress,\u201d according to CCC executive director Andrew Yeom yesterday.<\/p>\n

With this development, the CCC board agreed yesterday to cancel the administrative hearing set for today, Wednesday, whether or not to revoke IPI\u2019s exclusive casino license. The hearing was reset to Feb. 12, 2024.<\/p>\n

In his report during the CCC board\u2019s monthly meeting at the Springs Plaza yesterday, Yeom asked to put off the revocation hearing, considering that the ongoing settlement discussion is \u201cmaking certain progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yeom said IPI took the initiative to dismiss its two recent lawsuits against CCC and others.<\/p>\n

He said these lawsuits were dismissed without prejudice since the parties have engaged and are making progress in settlement talks in their efforts to reach an amicable resolution.<\/p>\n

In the first lawsuit, IPI is complaining about the casino regulatory fee, while in the second case, CCC is questioning the commission\u2019s authority.<\/p>\n

Yeom said if in case they have a settlement in place by next week or so, he will request for an emergency meeting to confirm the settlement with the board.<\/p>\n

He said he will then also request for the board to lift its previous order that suspends IPI\u2019s casino license.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Mariano Taitano said he knows they will be criticized again for resetting the revocation hearing, but he has no objection with the rescheduling because the parties are talking about a possible settlement.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully we\u2019ll see a settlement agreement before us,\u201d Taitano said.<\/p>\n

Assistant attorney general Keisha Blaise, who is counsel for Yeom, said they specifically asked for a short timeframe to reset the hearing because they are aggressively pursuing the settlement and if they fail to achieve that, then they can immediately proceed with the hearing.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Ramon M. Dela Cruz said it\u2019s never their intention to kill the casino industry as it is their responsibility to keep IPI in compliance.<\/p>\n

Dela Cruz said they asked that, as part of the stipulation for the settlement, all pending civil cases against CCC should be dropped.<\/p>\n

He said they gave IPI enough time to regroup and proceed if they can pay their obligations.<\/p>\n

Board vice chair Rafael Demapan presided the board hearing.<\/p>\n

IPI has failed to pay some $62 million in casino license fees it owes the CNMI government by the Dec. 30, 2023 deadline.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Commonwealth Casino Commission executive director Andrew Yeom discusses his report during the CCC board\u2019s regular monthly meeting at the Springs Plaza in Gualo Rai yesterday morning.<\/p>\n

-FERDIE DE LA TORRE
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The Commonwealth Casino Commission and Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC are reportedly engaged in settlement…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-403921","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\/403921","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=403921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}