IMPERIAL Pacific International LLC has no objection to the nomination of NMI Settlement Fund trustee Joyce Tang as its receiver, IPI attorney Michael Dotts informed the federal court on Thursday.
Joyce Tang
Last week, U.S. Department of Labor, represented by attorney Charles Song, submitted to the court the name of Tang, a Guam attorney, as the proposed receiver of IPI. Song also recommended that the receivership be limited to the liquidation of assets sufficient to purge contempt and pay the receiver’s fees and costs.
On April 11, 2019, USDOL and IPI entered into a consent judgement for previous allegations of labor violations at the casino construction site.
Song said IPI first violated the judgement on Dec. 1, 2019 after it failed to make a payment of $1,020,000.
Sometime in May 2020, USDOL said it discovered that IPI was not meeting its payroll obligations and not in compliance with the judgment’s prohibition against violating the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Song then filed a petition for contempt and for an order for IPI to show cause for failing to meet payroll obligations, for requiring employees to work without pay, for failing to provide payments to the U.S. secretary of Labor, and for failing to meet other requirements of the 2019 consent judgment.
District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona has found IPI, IPI Holdings Ltd. and IPI chairwoman Cui Li Jie in contempt of court for violating the consent judgment, and for not paying their current employees for over two months.
The judge ordered IPI, IPI Holdings Ltd. and IPI chairwoman Cui Li Jie to pay the current employees’ remaining back wages, the consent judgment balance of $1,182,793, and to create an escrow account to cover future employee payroll in the amount of $800,000 by March 1.
On Jan. 28, 2021, Judge Manglona told IPI it will be placed in receivership and its assets liquidated if no payment for the remaining back wages for current employees and the consent judgment has been received by the USDOL in the next 30 days.
USDOL recently told the judge that defendants have failed to comply with the court order.
