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CPA joins motion to dismiss Fund’s bankruptcy petition
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Posted on May 19 2012
By Ferdie de la Torre
Reporter
Reporter
The Commonwealth Ports Authority yesterday joined the CNMI government’s motion to dismiss the NMI Retirement Fund’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition.
Attorney Robert T. Torres, as counsel for CPA, cited that the CNMI in its motion to dismiss has emphasized the Fund’s enabling legislation and its duty as a fiscal and administrative agent of the government with respect to the pension system and its administration of the government’s life and health insurance programs.
“In all substantive says, the government’s motion to dismiss applies with equal force to CPA,” Torres pointed out.
The lawyer said that CPA was created by statute as a public corporation within the government. CPA’s functions are governmental and public and may sue and be sued in its own name, he added.
Since the establishment of the Fund, CPA employees have been members of the government pension system and that the employees also participate in the government’s life and health insurance programs.
The Fund administers the pension system and the insurance programs.
On Wednesday, the CNMI government, through assistant attorney general Teresita J. Sablan, filed the motion to dismiss.
Sablan echoed the position of the other parties in the case that the Fund is a government instrumentality and therefore not eligible to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Sablan said the U.S. District Court for the NMI Bankruptcy Division should dismiss the Fund’s bankruptcy petition because the Fund does not fall within the definition of a person or entity eligible for Chapter 11 protection.
Sablan said the CNMI government is an interested party to this proceeding as it created the Fund.
Two unnamed clients of attorney Bruce Jorgensen first brought up the motion to dismiss on the grounds that the Fund’s structure and statutory existence makes it clear that it is a “governmental unit” of the CNMI.
The U.S. Trustee followed Jorgensen’s group’s motion to dismiss on the same grounds.
Two retirees and members of the NMI Retirement Fund later joined the move to dismiss the Fund’s bankruptcy petition.
