{"id":405349,"date":"2024-02-13T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-13T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=405349"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"IPI-CCC-settlement-talks-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/IPI-CCC-settlement-talks-continue\/","title":{"rendered":"IPI, CCC settlement talks continue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The hearing whether or not to revoke Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC\u2019s exclusive casino license has been postponed again, this time to Feb. 20, 2024, as IPI and the Commonwealth Casino Commission continue their settlement talks.<\/p>\n<p>The revocation hearing was supposed to start yesterday, Feb. 12, but Saipan Tribune learned that CCC board vice chair Rafael Demapan granted last Feb. 5 the parties\u2019 second joint request to move the enforcement hearing to Feb. 20.<\/p>\n<p>Demapan\u2019s order states that CCC executive director Andrew Yeom and IPI, through their lawyers, asked the CCC board last Feb. 2 to reset the scheduled enforcement hearing for CCC\u2019s two complaints against IPI from Feb. 12 to Feb. 20.<\/p>\n<p>Citing the amended second joint motion, Demapan said the parties are still in settlement negotiations and need more time.<\/p>\n<p>He granted the motion for \u201cgood cause appearing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>IPI manager\/director Howyo Chi said yesterday that the new Feb. 20 hearing is needed to allow time for settlement negotiations. He did not elaborate.<\/p>\n<p>Yeom said yesterday that they need more time as \u201cit is a complicated discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>IPI is represented in the settlement negotiations by attorney Michael Chen, Saipan Tribune learned.<\/p>\n<p>Citing the matter\u2019s sensitivity, Yeom declined to disclose who are involved in the negotiations.<\/p>\n<p>Assistant attorney general Keisha Blaise is counsel for Yeom.<\/p>\n<p>The CCC board set the revocation originally for Jan. 31, 2024.<\/p>\n<p>IPI failed to pay some $62 million in casino license fees it owes the CNMI government by the Dec. 30, 2023, deadline.<\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/8939b4e08792363be3e19d845c46489f.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Andrew Yeom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The hearing whether or not to revoke Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC\u2019s exclusive casino license&#8230;<\/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-405349","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\/405349","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=405349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}