{"id":25981,"date":"2022-01-04T09:36:50","date_gmt":"2022-01-04T12:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=25981"},"modified":"2026-04-23T12:34:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T15:34:23","slug":"ccc-bill-to-end-ipis-exclusive-licence-is-unconstitutional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/ccc-bill-to-end-ipis-exclusive-licence-is-unconstitutional","title":{"rendered":"CCC: Bill to end IPI&#8217;s exclusive licence is unconstitutional"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Andrew Yeom, the CCC\u2019s executive director, said the local bill to allow five casino licences in Saipan would violate Article 1 Section 1 of the Contract Clause of the Commonwealth Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Northern Mariana Islands.- After being called to share his opinion regarding<strong>&nbsp;the House Local Bill 22-26 that would allow five casino licences on Saipan<\/strong>, Andrew Yeom, the Commonwealth Casino Commission\u2019s executive director, said the bill is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/cnmi-could-allow-5-casino-licences-on-saipan-through-a-new-bill\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The bill had been introduced<\/a>&nbsp;by&nbsp;<strong>Ralph N. Yumul, house floor leader<\/strong>. He stated as&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/ccc-seeks-immediate-revocation-of-ipi-casino-licence\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">IPI<\/a>&nbsp;had not been able to pay taxes and its US$15m exclusive licence fee,<strong>&nbsp;the island needed more than one operator<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, Yeom argued because an exclusive casino licence has already been established, <strong>the local bill would violate Article 1 Section 1<\/strong> of the Contract Clause of the Commonwealth Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Mariana&#8217;s Variety, Yumul had previously said: &#8220;We must move away from the current single licensee framework that is totally dependent on one business entity.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yumul said that if there were five casino licences each with an annual fee of US$5m, it would result in a total of US$25m which is US$10m more than what is being required by the current bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andrew Yeom, the CCC\u2019s executive director, said the local bill to allow five casino licences in Saipan would violate Article 1 Section 1 of the Contract Clause of the Commonwealth Constitution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":22906,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Commonwealth Casino Commission's executive director, Andrew Yeom, has declared a proposed bill to issue five new casino licenses in Saipan unconstitutional. This bill, introduced by Ralph N. Yumul, aims to diversify the market following IPI's failure to meet its financial obligations under its existing exclusive license. Yeom argues the new bill violates the Commonwealth Constitution's Contract Clause, which protects IPI's established exclusive licensing agreement.","focusai_entities":"Andrew Yeom, Commonwealth Casino Commission, IPI, Ralph N. Yumul","focusai_location":"Northern Mariana Islands, Saipan","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.95), operator_casino (0.9), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Legal Basis for Unconstitutionality","query":"What are the specific legal precedents or interpretations of the Contract Clause that the Commonwealth Casino Commission is relying upon to declare the bill unconstitutional?"},{"label":"Addressing IPI Non-Compliance","query":"What are the potential remedies or legislative pathways available to the Northern Mariana Islands government to address IPI's non-compliance while respecting existing contractual obligations?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,156,158],"tags":[24018,21613,22674],"class_list":["post-25981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-regulation-news","category-slider-home","tag-ccc","tag-commonwealth-casino-commission","tag-ipi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25981","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=25981"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26002,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25981\/revisions\/26002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}