IPI’s unlicensed key employees a puzzler for CCC

Andrew Yeom

The Commonwealth Casino Commission is in a quandary as to how to deal with key employees of Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC who are unlicensed by the CCC, yet are still getting paid by IPI.

These employees—referred to in the business as “Casino Key Employees”—are casino employees who are involved in operation in a supervisory role. The rule requires that these employees be licensed by the CCC but that is not happening at the moment.

However, CCC executive director Andrew Yeom recommended to the CCC board during their monthly meeting last week that they should “stand down” on this matter for now.

Yeom said the CNMI’s gaming law does not allow these unlicensed CKE individuals from being paid. “Clearly, this is in violation of our gaming law as well as our regulation,” he said.

However, he pointed out, they must be mindful that there is a labor law that protects even undocumented workers in that they generally have the same wage and hour rights as other workers.

Thus, Yeom said, the same federal wage and hour laws that apply to authorized workers generally apply to persons working without legal immigration status.

In this case, he said, these are legitimate workers in terms of immigration status who provided their labor, regardless of the gaming license.

“This is where I see that our local law may be in conflict with the federal labor law. That one says you must pay versus the other one says that you shall not,” the executive director said.

Therefore, Yeom said, they must be careful about how they deal with this delicate situation.

He said IPI should not have put themselves in this predicament where they are faced with breaking a law one way or another when they pay these individuals’ salaries, while they have not paid the regulatory fee, thus their gaming license applications for these people remain in incomplete status.

“Sure, this can be a subject for an enforcement action during the normal business environment. Unfortunately, we are not,” Yeom said.

He noted that IPI’s exclusive casino license is currently suspended and the U.S. District Court for the NMI’s preliminary injunction has been ordered upon CCC.

The executive director believes that they should forward a written warning to IPI to make sure that they are aware they are in violation of the gaming law and regulation by employing the CKEs without obtaining the CCC licenses.

“That way, we are not ignoring the symptoms. At the same time, we are treating this like treating to stop coughing or a fever when you have a common cold as the primary root cause,” Yeom said.

He said in this case, IPI’s unpaid regulatory fee is the root cause of the problems.