ASIDE from hearing the complaints about Imperial Pacific International’s failure to meet its obligations, the Commonwealth Casino Commission also questioned the casino investor’s financial suitability.
During Tuesday’s evidentiary hearing on Commission Complaints 2020-003, 2020-004 and 2020-005, Commission Chairman Edward C. Deleon Guerrero reminded IPI counsel, Tiberius Mocanu, of the casino law, which requires IPI to be financially suitable.
He also told the IPI attorney that the casino commission has “not only the authority but an obligation to enforce the requirement of the law.”
Deleon Guerrero likewise informed Mocanu that the Attorney General’s Office has provided the commission an opinion defining financial suitability as, among other things, having the ability to pay its vendors.
Deleon Guerrero noted that the complaints being heard on that day evidently showed that IPI is not able to pay its vendors.
“If the law says you must be financially suitable, and the evidence is clear you have not been paying obligations, don’t you think the commission has an obligation to enforce the requirement [for IPI] to be financially suitable?” he asked Mocanu.
Deleon Guerrero said if IPI’s exclusive casino license is suspended, and it still fails to comply with the conditions to get it reinstated, then the license is considered automatically revoked.
“I don’t foresee another hearing for revocation. I foresee that at the end of the period [and] IPI does not comply with the suspension conditions, the revocation would be automatic,” he added.
But Assistant Attorney General Mike Ernest, the commission’s legal counsel, said the commission may have to hold a hearing for the revocation of the casino license.
Mocanu agrees with Ernest, saying there must be a different burden and different due process if the commission would seek revocation.
Mocanu said that the commission’s executive director, Andrew Yeom, is seeking suspension of IPI’s license and not its revocation.
It also appears that it is the desire of the CNMI community “that IPI succeeds, that IPI comes back from the situation it is in, and do well,” Mocanu added.
Imperial Pacific International employees line up to get their W2 forms at IPI’s human resources office in Sadog Tasi on Tuesday.
Photo by Emmanuel T. Erediano
