The lawsuit seeks the restitution for all regulatory fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Northern Mariana Islands.-\u00a0Imperial Pacific International (IPI)<\/strong>\u00a0has taken legal action against the islands’ governor, \u00a0Arnold I. Palacios<\/strong>, and the Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC) in both their official and personal capacities.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an amended complaint filed in federal court, the company, represented by attorneys\u00a0Stephen Nutting<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Micheal Chen<\/strong>, seeks a jury trial. The lawsuit claims unconstitutional impairment of contract, violation of the contract clause of the US and CNMI constitutions, violation of the takings clause of the US Constitution, violation of the due process clauses of the US and CNMI Constitutions and breach of the casino licence agreement (CLA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Mariana’s Variety, IPI has requested an injunction to prevent the enforcement of the regulatory fee statute and collection of the annual regulatory fee.\u00a0The company wants the court to declare the regulatory fee statute as unconstitutional<\/strong> and has requested the court order the CCC to return all regulatory fees paid in the past and to nullify any adverse administrative decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lawsuit argues that the imposition of the annual regulatory fees statute constitutes a substantial and unconstitutional impairment of the CLA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Assistant attorney general\u00a0Keisha Blaise<\/strong>, who represents the CCC, has filed a 24-page motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Blaise said the court cannot hear IPI’s claims because they were already settled in a previous case. She said IPI failed to properly serve the defendant and that its claims are untimely and barred by the statute of limitations. Blaise also said the CCC cannot sue or be sued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A week ago, the U.S. Supreme Court denied <\/strong>IPI’s request for a writ of certiorari<\/a> <\/strong>to appeal the Ninth Circuit\u2019s decision, which allowed the CCC to move forward with the revocation hearing of the company\u2019s casino licence<\/a> that will be held on January 31 at 9 a.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The CCC claims IPI owes the CNMI over US$62m in licence fees and more than US$17.6m in regulatory fees for the years 2020 through 2023: US$79.6m in total.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The lawsuit seeks the restitution for all regulatory fees.<\/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) has initiated legal action against the Governor and Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC) of the Northern Mariana Islands, alleging unconstitutional impairment of contract and seeking restitution of regulatory fees. This lawsuit, filed amidst IPI's substantial outstanding fee obligations, challenges the regulatory fee statute and seeks to nullify adverse administrative decisions. The CCC is moving to dismiss the claims, citing prior settlements and procedural deficiencies, while a casino license revocation hearing for IPI is imminent.","focusai_entities":"Imperial Pacific International, IPI, Arnold I. Palacios, Commonwealth Casino Commission, CCC, Stephen Nutting, Micheal Chen, Keisha Blaise, U.S. Supreme Court, Ninth Circuit","focusai_location":"Northern Mariana Islands, US, CNMI","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Regulatory Autonomy Impact?","query":"What are the broader implications of this legal challenge on the regulatory autonomy of the Commonwealth Casino Commission and its ability to enforce licensing terms?"},{"label":"IPI Financial Viability?","query":"How might the outcome of IPI's license revocation hearing on January 31 impact the company's financial viability and the future of integrated resort development in the CNMI?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,439],"tags":[24134],"class_list":["post-777012612","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\/777012612","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=777012612"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777012612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777012619,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777012612\/revisions\/777012619"}],"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=777012612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777012612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777012612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The CCC rejects the claims<\/h2>\n\n\n\n