The casino says it cannot pay its US$15.5 million licence fee this year due to the drop in business during the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Northern Mariana Islands.- The Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC) of the Northern Mariana Islands has been quick to deny Imperial Pacific International\u2019s (IPI) request for an abatement<\/a><\/em><\/strong> on its casino licence fee of US$15.5 million for this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The payment was due on August 12, but the day before that IPI\u2019s CEO, Donald Browne, sent a note to the CCC arguing that the casino’s closure since March due to Covid-19 measures, and uncertainty on when local gaming and tourism industries would resume, constituted a \u201cclassic force majeure\u201d that justified the abatement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CCC chairman Edward DeLeon Guerrero responded to IPI\u2019s request in a note, saying: \u201cIPI needs to fulfil its obligations, not only to the people of the CNMI, but also to their employees, vendors, and other parties who are contracted to work with their organization.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He added that the CCC was \u201cdeeply disappointed in IPI\u2019s decision to request an abatement of their annual license fee and casino regulatory fee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n IPI is facing several legal battles<\/a><\/em><\/strong> for unpaid work from vendors and suppliers, and the CCC was already claiming funds<\/a><\/em><\/strong> the casino\u2019s licence obligations demand it pay to community projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DeLeon Guerrero concluded: \u201cThe CCC is continuing its enforcement and investigations of its recent Orders that encompass the entire range of any payables or contributions owed to public entities and prepared to seek all remedies under the CNMI gaming laws and under the Casino License Agreement as they relate to IPI\u2019s nonpayment and other non-compliance matters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The casino says it cannot pay its US$15.5 million licence fee this year due to the drop in business during the pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9004,"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 been denied its request for a US$15.5 million casino license fee abatement by the Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC) of the Northern Mariana Islands. IPI cited force majeure due to COVID-19 closures, but the CCC emphasized IPI's obligations to the CNMI, employees, and vendors. The CCC is initiating enforcement actions for non-payment and other non-compliance matters.","focusai_entities":"Imperial Pacific International, Commonwealth Casino Commission, Donald Browne, Edward DeLeon Guerrero","focusai_location":"Northern Mariana Islands, CNMI","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.95), operator_casino (0.9), investor_analyst (0.95), supplier_vendor (0.9), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"IPI License Revocation?","query":"What specific remedies under CNMI gaming laws is the CCC prepared to seek, and what is the timeline for potential license revocation or suspension for Imperial Pacific International?"},{"label":"Force Majeure Precedent?","query":"How might the CCC's denial of IPI's force majeure claim influence future regulatory interpretations of similar clauses for other operators facing market disruptions?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,28],"tags":[22674,23703,22675],"class_list":["post-9002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-casino-news","tag-ipi","tag-licence","tag-northern-mariana-islands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9002","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9002"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19712,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9002\/revisions\/19712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}