{"id":21657,"date":"2021-08-17T12:28:05","date_gmt":"2021-08-17T15:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=21657"},"modified":"2026-04-23T16:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T19:35:07","slug":"ipi-sued-for-failing-to-pay-rent-on-warehouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/ipi-sued-for-failing-to-pay-rent-on-warehouse","title":{"rendered":"IPI sued for failing to pay rent on warehouse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Imperial Pacific faces another lawsuit as the South Pacific Lumber Company sues for unpaid rent dating back to March 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Northern Mariana Islands.- Another day, another legal case for Imperial Pacific International<\/strong>. Now South Pacific Lumber Company <\/strong>is suing the casino operator\u00a0for non-payment of rent on commercial warehouse space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to\u00a0James Whang<\/strong>, of South Pacific Lumber Company,\u00a0IPI stopped paying the rent in March 2020<\/strong>. He has asked the court to issue an order evicting IPI from the property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also wants\u00a0injunctive reliefs to preserve IPI’s assets\u00a0<\/strong>inside the warehouse to ensure payment of the judgment entered in the case. The company’s attorneys are\u00a0seeking a payment of $391,703.13<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 $276,080 for rent, $110,432 for late fees, and $5,191.13 for utilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IPI first leased the warehouse for a one-year period starting on May 11, 2015. Both parties agreed to extend the lease to May 10, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IPI wants to hire local workers to finish new casino in Garapan<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Imperial Pacific International<\/a> <\/strong>is seeking locals to resume work on its new casinos in Garapan \u2013 if it gets the five-year extension it wants, that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reddie Dela Cruz<\/strong>, IPI Human Resources director, said IPI only has about 40 employees at present, mostly assigned to security. She said that as the company is facing an indefinite suspension of its gaming licence,<\/a> she doesn\u2019t know where the money to resume construction will come from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, she has said that the construction team has started talks with local contractors about hiring local workers<\/strong> if IPI is finally allowed to finish its new IR. The venue was supposed to be completed by February 28<\/a> but failed to meet that deadline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tao Xing<\/strong>, IPI senior vice president of marketing and public affairs, said the company is still waiting for a response from the Commonwealth Lottery Commission<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the company submitted a request in January to\u00a0Gov Ralph DLG Torres<\/strong>\u00a0but was told to resubmit it to the CLC as it had jurisdiction over IPI\u2019s request. According to Saipan Tribune, Xing resubmitted IPI\u2019s request to the CLC chairman on July 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there have been doubts over who should make the decision as CCC counsel Michael Ernest<\/strong> argued it wasn\u2019t clear that the CCC had the authority to amend the current casino licence. He added that there is no current enforcement action against IPI regarding the completion date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imperial Pacific faces another lawsuit as the South Pacific Lumber Company sues for unpaid rent dating back to March 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":18727,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Imperial Pacific International (IPI) faces a new lawsuit from South Pacific Lumber Company for over $390,000 in unpaid warehouse rent since March 2020, alongside an eviction request and asset preservation injunction. Concurrently, IPI seeks a five-year gaming license extension to complete its Garapan casino, despite an indefinite license suspension and jurisdictional ambiguities between the Governor's office, Commonwealth Lottery Commission, and Commonwealth Casino Commission regarding amendment authority.","focusai_entities":"Imperial Pacific International, South Pacific Lumber Company, James Whang, Reddie Dela Cruz, Tao Xing, Commonwealth Lottery Commission, Gov Ralph DLG Torres, Saipan Tribune, Commonwealth Casino Commission, Michael Ernest","focusai_location":"Northern Mariana Islands, Garapan, Saipan","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.8), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"IPI License Extension?","query":"What specific governance framework provisions or precedents exist within the Northern Mariana Islands for amending a casino license term, particularly when an operator faces multiple compliance breaches and an indefinite suspension?"},{"label":"Asset Preservation Impact?","query":"How might the requested injunctive reliefs to preserve IPI's assets within the warehouse impact the company's broader financial restructuring efforts or potential asset liquidation strategies?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,157],"tags":[14213,22674],"class_list":["post-21657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-business-news","tag-imperial-pacific","tag-ipi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21657"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21675,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21657\/revisions\/21675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}