IMPERIAL Pacific International no longer has key employees with valid licenses to represent the casino investor in legal proceedings, Commonwealth Casino Commission Executive Director Andrew Yeom informed the commissioners Thursday.
He noted that that the commission had to allow IPI treasury director Frances Mafnas to sign and submit documents on behalf of IPI although she is not a key casino employee. “This is where it gets perturbing for us to accept these documents with her signature [as] an authoritative representation,” he said.
Yeom said it is the only way for IPI’s submission to be treated as an official document “although with concerns.”
IPI has submitted reports with no signatures since the company has been warned not to submit documents with Ray Yumul as the chief executive officer because he is not licensed by the commission.
IPI has applied for a license for Yumul, but the commission has yet to act on the application pending the casino operator’s payment of the $3 million regulatory fee.
“This represents another problem [since] these documents are now perhaps invalid because they lack the signature of an authorized representative of the company,” Yeom said, referring to IPI’s submitted documents.
He reiterated that IPI’s lack of licensed key employees is a result of its non-payment of the annual $3 million regulatory fee.
“We cannot issue new or renew casino key employee or regular employee licenses for IPI for the gaming side. This has put both of us [licensee and the commission] in a peculiar position where they [IPI] are running out of [persons] to submit reports/documents or to talk to us regarding various matters that need to be discussed for clarity,” Yeom said.
“More and more, I and the rest of the [commission] managers and staff are becoming perturbed on how to proceed in carrying out our jobs, such as discussing or questioning various matters or receiving certain submissions without having to break our own regulation,” he added.
For now, the commission is in the process of registering IPI’s non-gaming executives, such as human resources director Redie Dela Cruz and senior vice president for public affairs Tao Xing.
Yeom said, “This is a borderline approach, but still valid because the registration of non-gaming employees is free of charge in our regulation and clearly stated in our application. Therefore, we are proceeding it this way for now while not violating the regulation.”
He added that the commission is also reviewing the regulation “to see if this is subject for violation at this time.”
“This is something I just wanted to let you know — that we have these ambiguous problems at hand and hopefully we can find a solution soon,” Yeom told the commissioners.
Commonwealth Casino Commission Andrew Yeom right foreground, back to the camera, reports to the commissioners during a meeting on Thursday.
