{"id":777024140,"date":"2025-03-17T08:49:07","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T11:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777024140"},"modified":"2026-04-22T00:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T03:48:11","slug":"commonwealth-casino-commission-challenges-rejection-of-backpay-request","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/commonwealth-casino-commission-challenges-rejection-of-backpay-request","title":{"rendered":"Commonwealth Casino Commission challenges rejection of backpay request"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Vice chair Rafael S. Demapan said the Office of the Attorney General\u2019s decision was \u201cflawed and incorrect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Northern Mariana Islands.- The Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC) is challenging the Office of the Attorney General (OAG)\u2019s instruction<\/a> to the Department of Finance not to pay US$250,000 allocated for commissioners’ back pay in the revised fiscal year 2025 budget. Vice chair Rafael S. Demapan said the Office of the Attorney General\u2019s reasoning was \u201cflawed and incorrect\u201d and referenced only part of a law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finance secretary Tracy B. Norita <\/strong>had said payment cannot be made as members of the CCC are not government employees and paying them public funds cannot be seen as serving the public interest.\u00a0However, Demapan said the full law reads: “members of the Commonwealth Casino Commission are not employees of the Commonwealth but [they] shall be indemnified and defended as if they were employees of the Commonwealth.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demapan said that the laws on casino gaming on Saipan are local and that the cost to implement and enforce them falls on the local government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CCC has been without income since the closure of Imperial Pacific International (IPI), which halted casino operations in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, the CCC has not collected its annual regulatory fee of US$3.15m, leading to 50 layoffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mariana Islands Governor\u2019s Office files declaration opposing IPI asset sale<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The CNMI Governor\u2019s Office, represented by Brendan Layde, has joined opposition to the sale of IPI\u2019s assets to Team King Investment. It\u2019s filed a declaration with the bankruptcy division of the District Court of the NMI claiming that\u00a0Team King\u2019s principal<\/strong>\u00a0is \u201cclosely related to Imperial Pacific International (IPI).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Layde said he had been tracking connections between people and companies linked to IPI for several years and had gathered documents from the CNMI, the British Virgin Islands, Hong Kong, and other locations. According to Mariana\u2019s Variety, Layde said he had proof that the only two potential buyers of IPI\u2019s casino assets, Loi Lam Sit<\/a> and Team King, had strong ties to IPI and its leaders that were not revealed during the auction process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Layde said Loi Lam Sit had agreed to be a stalking horse bidder because he was approached by a personal friend to help Xiaobo Ji with financing IPI\u2019s Chapter 11 case and to fund a potential settlement with the Commonwealth Casino Commission. Ji is the son of Lijie Cui, the controlling shareholder of Imperial Pacific International Holdings (IPIH), the parent company of IPI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for Team King, Layde said the limited liability company was only formed on January 17 and registered with the Registrar of Corporations of the CNMI on February 4. He said documents show connections between Team King\u2019s principals and Ji, Cui and IPI, dating back to at least 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A hearing to evaluate Team King\u2019s bid is scheduled before bankruptcy judge Robert J. Faris on March 25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vice chair Rafael S. Demapan said the Office of the Attorney General\u2019s decision was \u201cflawed and incorrect.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":26855,"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 (CCC) is challenging the Office of the Attorney General's directive to withhold US$250,000 in back pay for commissioners, citing legal interpretations regarding their indemnification status. Concurrently, the CNMI Governor's Office opposes the sale of Imperial Pacific International (IPI)'s assets to Team King Investment, alleging undisclosed ties between the prospective buyers and IPI's controlling shareholders, raising significant governance and transparency concerns within the bankruptcy proceedings.","focusai_entities":"Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC), Office of the Attorney General (OAG), Department of Finance, Rafael S. Demapan, Tracy B. Norita, Imperial Pacific International (IPI), CNMI Governor\u2019s Office, Brendan Layde, Team King Investment, Loi Lam Sit, Xiaobo Ji, Lijie Cui, Imperial Pacific International Holdings (IPIH), District Court of the NMI, Robert J. Faris","focusai_location":"Northern Mariana Islands, Saipan, British Virgin Islands, Hong Kong","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.8), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Impact on Saipan's Gaming Future?","query":"What are the long-term implications of the CCC's funding dispute and the contested IPI asset sale for the regulatory stability and operational viability of the Saipan gaming market?"},{"label":"Regulatory Governance Frameworks?","query":"How do the alleged undisclosed ties in the IPI asset sale highlight potential vulnerabilities in current regulatory governance frameworks for M&A transactions within distressed gaming assets?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,163],"tags":[21613],"class_list":["post-777024140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-finance-news","tag-commonwealth-casino-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777024140","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=777024140"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777024140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777024165,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777024140\/revisions\/777024165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777024140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777024140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777024140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}