Saipan Casino Punished Female Employees for Complaining About Abuse, Federal Agency Charges

SAIPAN, CNMI - Imperial Pacific International, LLC, doing business as Best Sunshine Inter­national, which operates a casino in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) in con­junction with Imperial Pacific International Holdings Ltd., an investment holding company, violated federal law by subjecting female employees to sexual harassment, other sex-based discrimination, and retaliation, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed today.

• FBI raids on the island of Saipan of the offices of Ralph Torres, governor of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Imperial Pacific International Holdings appear to be linked to possible bribery, money laundering and improper political donations, according to a search warrant seen by Asia Sentinel.
• Imperial Pacific International, LLC – a Chinese investment holding company – owns and operates the Saipan casino.

According to the EEOC's lawsuit, Imperial Pacific fostered an environment where its customers engaged in unlawful harassment of its employees, including sexual advances, demands for sexual favors, sexual comments and sexual physical touching. The EEOC also charged that Imperial Pacific shrugged off repeated complaints of sexual harassment in the workplace and later retaliated against female employees for complaining by reducing their hours, imposing additional work duties, and terminating them or forcing them to quit. The EEOC further asserted that Imperial Pacific engaged in sex discrimination in the terms and conditions of employment by assigning different duties to female VIP service hosts than to male VIP service hosts.

Sex discrimination and retaliation for complaining about it are prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. Imperial Pacific International (CNMI), LLC, dba Best Sunshine International et al., Case No. 1:19-cv-00017) after first attempting to reach a prelitigation settlement through its voluntary conciliation process. The EEOC's suit seeks monetary damages for a class of employees, as well as injunctive relief intended to prevent and correct any future discrimination, harassment and retaliation.

In August 2014, Imperial Pacific International was granted a 25-year license to build and operate a casino on Saipan with an option to extend the license for another 15 years. Best Sunshine originally planned to spend US$3.14 billion and operate 2,229 hotel room.

'Sex harassment remains a persistent problem,' said Anna Park, regional attorney for the EEOC's Los Angeles District, which includes Saipan, CNMI in its jurisdiction. 'Employers should be mindful of their responsibility to create a discrimination and harassment free work environment and should not be fostering a workplace that allows verbal and physical sexual abuse and harassment.'

Glory Gervacio Saure, director of the EEOC's Honolulu Local Office, said, 'There is no excuse for sexual harassment and other sex-based discrimination in the 21^st century workplace. When employers dis­cover such unlawful practices, they must root it out rather than retaliate. This lawsuit sends a clear message to employers that the EEOC will not hesitate to enforce these federal protections across its jurisdiction, which, in this case, means across the Pacific.'

According to its website, Imperial Pacific delivers world-class entertainment experiences for elite travelers by pioneering cutting-edge concepts in entertainment and tourism.

Imperial Pacific International Saipan

Preventing workplace harassment through systemic litigation and investigation is one of the six national priorities identified by the Commission's Strategic Enforcement Plan.

The EEOC advances opportunity in the workplace by enforcing federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. More information is available at www.eeoc.gov. Stay connected with the latest EEOC news by subscribing to our email updates.

A rendering of Imperial Pacific’s Grand Mariana Casino Hotel & Resort

Imperial Pacific International Saipan Casino Entertainment

U.S. federal prosecutors indicted three people involved with Imperial Pacific International Holdings Ltd.’s controversial casino project in Saipan for employing undocumented workers, making illegal money transfers, and participating in a criminal conspiracy – adding to the legal troubles connected to the Hong Kong operator.
Prosecutors allege the trio conspired to illegally hire large numbers of Chinese laborers to work on the casino site, “instructing prospective hires to lie to immigration inspectors” on arrival by claiming they were tourists. The defendants – Liwen Wu, Jianmin Xu, and Yan Shi – were employed either by Imperial Pacific or MCC International Saipan Ltd., a Chinese construction company that was helping to build a massive gaming resort in Saipan, a remote U.S. territory in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The indictment includes a conspiracy charge under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a powerful legal tool used in the past against Mafia families in New York as well as the Hells Angels motorcycle club.
The charges unsealed this week are the latest legal challenge confronting Imperial Pacific’s business in Saipan, which was for a time one of the highest-grossing casinos in the world — despite operating first from a nondescript storefront and then a half-finished construction site. Imperial Pacific and Metallurgical Corp. of China Ltd., which is one of China’s biggest state-owned construction businesses and owned the subsidiary unit in Saipan, are not accused of wrongdoing in the legal filing.
All three defendants are Chinese nationals, and the Department of Justice said in a statement that they currently reside outside the U.S. At least one of the named individuals no longer works for Imperial, according to the company.
A lawyer for Imperial Pacific said he was unable to comment on the company’s behalf, while listed numbers for the company are no longer in use or have been disconnected. MCC didn’t respond to requests for comment.
In November, federal agents searched Imperial Pacific’s local offices as well as the home of Ralph Torres, Saipan’s governor and a longtime backer of the casino. At the time, Torres acknowledged the FBI searches and denied any wrongdoing.
Last year, Imperial Pacific agreed to pay $3 million to resolve claims it didn’t pay construction workers minimum wage and overtime. In 2017, federal prosecutors charged MCC employees, as well as other Chinese nationals involved with the project, with violations relating to the employment of unauthorized workers. Some pleaded guilty.
Imperial Pacific said one individual indicted in the latest case was a non-managerial employee of the group who left in 2017, according to an Aug. 5 statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange. In a separate court filing to stay a civil case, attorneys for the company described Wu and Xu as Imperial Pacific executives.
Imperial Pacific has attracted significant attention in the gaming world and beyond since it began operations in Saipan in 2015. At one point the company, which is controlled by Chinese businesswoman Cui Lijie, counted former directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency, as well as the former governors of New York and Pennsylvania, among its directors or advisers.
The casino, which is located on an island with almost no modern tourist infrastructure and is more than three hours’ flight from any major city, was turning over more per-table bets at its peak than the glitziest facilities in Las Vegas and Macau.
But betting volumes have declined precipitously since then, and Imperial Pacific’s market capitalization, which topped $8 billion at its peak in 2015, has plummeted to about $184 million today. The company’s stock closed at HK$0.01 a share Friday. Matthew Campbell, Bloomberg

Imperial Pacific Hotel And Casino Saipan

In this 2018 file photo, Chinese laborers are seen gathering in front of their living quarters before a protest about allegedly missing wages, in Saipan