NEWS
3 March 2021
Imperial Pacific International threatened with casino licence suspension
By Violeta Prockyte

Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC) executive director Andrew Yeom stated the company admitted to five cases of wrongdoing. 

These violations include failure to pay the $3.1m annual regulatory fee and $15.5m annual casino licence fee, failure to comply with CCC’s attempts to have the company settle its debts with vendors, as well as failure to contribute $20m paid annually to community benefit fund in 2018 and 2019 as required by the Casino Licence Agreement. 

“We’re asking for a licence suspension of an indeterminate amount until they fully comply with the orders that they have violated,” said assistant attorney general Mike Ernest.

Reportedly, the maximum fine for all the violations is close to $808m, but Yeom requested for IPI to pay only $5m. 

Yeom said the company does not respect the regulators, so he asked “for the commission to impose a penalty that impresses upon IPI the need to start following the Commonwealth law and to start respecting the CCC.” 

If IPI does nothing about the violations, it’s possible the commission could revoke its casino licence. 

“The casino investor should have simply said that they have no money, and that they are facing receivership,” said Ernest. “Clearly they had better things to do than following our orders.”