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CCC proceeds with meeting; skirts IPI topic
The Commonwealth Casino Commission commissioners held their monthly meeting yesterday, but did not touch any issue involving Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC due to the federal court’s issuance of a temporary restraining order against CCC.
The board also removed from the meeting’s agenda CCC executive director Andrew Yeom’s report, which was expected to touch on the IPI subject. Yeom was also not allowed to participate in the meeting.
CCC board chair Edward C. DeLeon Guerrero said the commission received late Monday afternoon the TRO issued by the U.S. District Court for the NMI preventing the commission from continuing with its plan to make administrative action for an evidentiary hearing in the cases against IPI.
“We are complying with that order,” DeLeon Guerrero said.
He said the Office of the Attorney General and the IPI counsel appeared before the District Court on Wednesday and the court extended the TRO.
In the meantime, the chairman said, they were advised by their counsel that they’re supposed to cancel this meeting but they decided to go ahead with it since they are just having their regular monthly meeting and not as part of an administrative hearing.
“We are barred from discussing that, [which is] why all of the sections involving IPI will not be discussed today,” DeLeon Guerrero said.
He said, they will however, continue to meet for their regulatory mandate as they are required to have at least once a month.
The chairman said there are many reasons for that TRO but that he would rather not discuss it.
The commissioners then discussed CCC’s opening up its bank account. They later held an executive session.
Last Monday, U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona granted IPI’s request for a TRO to prevent CCC from holding a hearing on May 24 and 25, 2022, to revoke IPI’s exclusive casino license. Manglona later extended the TRO against CCC to allow CCC to properly respond to IPI’s complaint against the commission.
Manglona noted, among other things, that IPI anticipates receiving $150 million in financing before the end of May to make payments due to the CCC and other creditors to resume its operations.
