Imperial Pacific International has argued that the attorney\u2019s fees should be lower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Northern Mariana Islands.- Imperial Pacific International (IPI) <\/strong>has challenged a motion for attorney’s fees presented by\u00a0Joshua Gray<\/a>, a former IPI employee who sued the company for discrimination. The casino operator said the fees should be lower than the amount requested. In May, the District Court for the NMI made a judgment\u00a0awarding Gray US$5.6m<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gray, represented by attorney Aaron Halegua, is seeking US$232,730.25 in fees and US$33,921.74 in associated costs. IPI, through attorney Michael Chen, contends that certain aspects of the fees are unwarranted and that the number of hours billed by Gray’s legal team were vague and excessive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chen said fees cannot be awarded for services related to unsuccessful claims. He said the court previously declined to grant front pay to Gray, rendering any fee request linked to this aspect unsubstantiated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Mariana’s Variety, Chen said: “No fee may be awarded for services on the claim for front pay. Attorneys for the plaintiff asked for US$4,344.90 for services related to the claim of front pay where the phrase \u2018front pay\u2019 was specifically mentioned in the time entries provided by the plaintiff\u2019s counsels.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chen added: \u201cIn the context of a motion for attorney\u2019s fees, the defendant urges the court to exercise its sound discretion to scrutinize the time entries provided by the plaintiff\u2019s counsel with critical eyes, considering potential ethical issues and the vulnerability of defendant in this aspect.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Imperial Pacific International has argued that the attorney\u2019s fees should be lower.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":19434,"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), a casino operator in the Northern Mariana Islands, is challenging a US$232,730.25 attorney's fee request from former employee Joshua Gray, who previously won a US$5.6 million discrimination lawsuit against the company. IPI contends the fees are excessive, vague, and include services for unsuccessful claims, specifically citing work related to a denied front pay claim.","focusai_entities":"Imperial Pacific International, Joshua Gray, Aaron Halegua, Michael Chen, Mariana's Variety","focusai_location":"Northern Mariana Islands, NMI","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.75), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.85), investor_analyst (0.9), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Impact on IPI's liquidity?","query":"How will the US$5.6 million judgment and the contested legal fees impact Imperial Pacific International's current liquidity and future capital expenditure plans, particularly given its broader financial challenges?"},{"label":"Precedent for fee disputes?","query":"What precedent does the court's decision on the attorney's fees set for future employment litigation within the iGaming sector, particularly regarding the recoverability of costs for unsuccessful claims?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,439],"tags":[24134],"class_list":["post-777007961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-legal-news","tag-imperial-pacific-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777007961","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=777007961"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777007961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777007990,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777007961\/revisions\/777007990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777007961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777007961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777007961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}