Saving Seafood

Exclusive: Chris Lischewski offers a warning to seafood CEOs

July 1, 2020 — Chris Lischewski is the former president and CEO of Bumble Bee Foods. Earlier this month, Lischewski was sentenced to 40 months in prison and given a USD 100,000 (EUR 88,000) fine after a jury found him guilty of conspiracy to fix the prices of canned tuna sold in the United States from 2011 to 2013.

SeafoodSource: Unless your testimony was misunderstood, you swore under oath that you were not part of any conspiracy to fix the prices of canned tuna while you led Bumble Bee. Do you stand by that statement? And if so, is that an indictment of the numerous individuals who swore under oath that you had been a leader in the purported conspiracy?

Lischewski: I did swear under oath that I would tell the truth, which is exactly what I did. Only two witnesses – [Walter Scott] Cameron and [Ken] Worsham – testified that I was a leader in the purported conspiracy. That testimony – given in return for a favorable sentencing recommendation by the government – was false. Shue Wing Chan of Chicken of the Sea testified that he had an unspoken “understanding” with me not to promote aggressively. But he admitted that the “understanding” existed only in his own mind and that I never told him that I shared it. As I testified at trial, whatever may have been in Chan’s mind, I had no price-fixing “understanding” with him of any kind.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

In a rare outcome, former Bumble Bee CEO will be sent to prison for price-fixing

June 17, 2020 — The former chief executive officer and president of Bumble Bee Foods, LLC, one of the world’s largest producers of canned tuna and other seafood products, has been sentenced to 40 months in jail for his leadership role in a three-year antitrust conspiracy to fix the prices of canned tuna. Christopher Lischewski’s sentence, which also includes a $100,000 criminal fine, comes after a San Francisco jury found him guilty in December of helping to orchestrate the scheme, which also involved the StarKist and Chicken of the Sea companies.

“The conduct was deliberate, it was planned, it was sustained, over a three-year period,” said Judge Edward M. Chen, according to reporting from Seafood Source. “This was not a rash act of having to commit a crime under distress, under episodic circumstances as we see sometimes, this was a contemplated and deliberate plan.”

Moreover, he said, the scheme targeted poor people.

Read the full story at The Counter

Found guilty of price-fixing, Chris Lischewski braces for upcoming sentencing

June 4, 2020 — Chris Lischewski, the former president and CEO of Bumble Bee Foods, will finally face sentencing on Tuesday, 16 June after months of delays caused by the coronavirus crisis.

After a three-week-long trial ending in December, a jury found Lischewski guilty of being involved in a scheme between Bumble Bee, StarKist, and Chicken of the Sea to fix the price of canned tuna sold in the United States between 2011 and 2013. Lischewski faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of USD 1 million (EUR 900,000).

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Washington state sues Starkist over price-fixing

June 3, 2020 — Bob Ferguson, the attorney general for the U.S. state of Washington, filed a civil lawsuit on 2 June against canned tuna producer Starkist, its parent company Dongwon Industries, and Chris Lischewski, the former CEO of Bumble Bee Foods, alleging a price-fixing conspiracy they were involved cost the state’s citizens at least USD 6  million (EUR 5.3 million).

Washington is the first state to bring a civil suit in the price-fixing scandal, which resulted from an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, resulting in guilty pleas from StarKist and Bumble Bee in separate criminal trials, and Lischewski’s conviction in a trial at the end of last year.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Bumble Bee Launches New Project to Improve Indian Ocean Tuna Fisheries

February 11, 2020 — The following was released by Ocean Outcomes & Bumble Bee Foods:

Bumble Bee Foods, LLC, FCF Co, Ltd. and Ocean Outcomes have launched an initiative to improve the sustainability of Bumble Bee source fisheries in the Indian Ocean. The project is the first of its kind in the region for longline vessels catching albacore tuna. To date, no albacore tuna or longline fisheries in the Indian Ocean are certified as sustainable.

The project team hopes to change this in the coming years by improving fishery data collection, reporting mechanisms, monitoring tools and management strategies through a newly launched fishery improvement project (FIP). The objective of the FIP is to improve practices on Chinese Taipei longline tuna fishing vessels so that the fishery is able to achieve a certifiable status within five years.

“We are very excited to formally launch our FIP in the Indian Ocean, expanding the work we have initiated in the Pacific,” said Mike Kraft, VP Global Sustainability and Social Responsibility for The Bumble Bee Seafood Company. “This Indian Ocean FIP will work to improve the sustainability of yet another major source of the albacore used in Bumble Bee’s products.”

Participating FIP vessels catch approximately 6,000 metric tons of albacore tuna from the Indian Ocean annually, much of which is loined in Mauritius and exported to North American markets for canning. Project team members believe this FIP – along with other new and emerging initiatives in the Indian Ocean – can be a catalyst for tuna fisheries in the region to support development of precautionary science-based management strategies, which can help ensure the abundance of albacore species.

“Projects such as this offer a transparent, stepwise approach for fishers to move towards sustainability, which is sorely needed in the Indian Ocean. We’re proud to work with the industry to reduce the negative impacts of fishing and to address the challenges of longline fisheries,” said Daniel Suddaby, VP Strategy and Impact at Ocean Outcomes.

As a first phase of the project, the project team will work to generate better fishery data, which will be used to inform science-based management at the regional level for the target albacore stock and any fishery bycatch species. A key component of this effort will be to increase electronic observer coverage on the fishing vessels, with a long-term goal of 100 percent coverage. Currently, observer coverage is occurring in a small subset of longliners.

This FIP is one of two projects between Bumble Bee, FCF and O2 focused on ensuring sustainable Chinese Taipei longline fisheries; the other is for longline vessels in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Coordination with – and support from – other organizations working on sustainable tuna, such as International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) will be core to the projects’ success. The goal of both FIPs is to achieve a certifiable status by 2024.

To learn more about the Indian Ocean tuna FIP and track its progress, visit www.FisheryProgress.org.

Judge approves FCF’s purchase of Bumble Bee Foods

January 24, 2020 — U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Laurie Silverstein has approved Fong Chun Formosa (FCF) Fishery Company’s stalking-horse bid for Bumble Bee Foods, giving the Kaohsiung, Taiwan-based tuna supplier ownership and control over the iconic American brand.

In November 2019, FCF entered a stalking-horse bid for Bumble Bee, which had filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. state of Delaware. FCF has long been one of Bumble Bee’s top suppliers of albacore, skipjack, yellowfin, and bigeye tuna.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

FCF only bidder for Bumble Bee, with judge to decide if sale moves forward

January 21, 2020 — Taiwan-based Fong Chun Formosa (FCF) Fishery Company is in line to purchase Bumble Bee Foods, after an auction for Bumble Bee scheduled for 21 January was canceled due to a lack of bidders.

FCF will pay between USD 926.6 million and USD 930.6 million (EUR 835.3 million and 838.9 million) for Bumble Bee, according to court documents. It will also take on nearly all Bumble Bee’s liabilities, including USD 17 million (EUR 15.3 million) still due under the DOJ Agreement, and the offer of future employment for their employees.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Another bumper year coming for seafood M&A after 2019 spend rockets past $5bn

January 15, 2020 — With deals for two massive US seafood firms set to close early this year, there’s a good chance that 2020 will be another bumper year for seafood mergers and acquisitions (M&A), after 2019 saw a surge in both deal values and quantities.

A total of $5.16 billion was spent on seafood mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in 2019, over $1bn more than 2018 ($3.86bn), according to data compiled by Undercurrent News from transactions where the sale value was revealed or could be estimated.

Last year has therefore replaced 2018 as the second-most lucrative year for seafood deals on record, behind only the $5.83bn spent in 2015, driven by the sales of aquafeed giants EWOS Group and Nutreco.

Had the sales of US megafirms American Seafoods Group (ASG) and Bumble Bee Foods been closed before the end of December, last year may even have beaten 2015’s record. ASG is reputedly valued upwards of $1.5bn, and possesses a pollock quota holding of 250,000 metric tons.

As of Nov. 12, 2019, a pollock consortium — comprised of Aleutian Spray Fisheries, Arctic Storm Management Group, Glacier Fish Company and Trident Seafoods — is the frontrunner for ASG’s business, but there still remains a possibility that Bregal Partners, the largest shareholder in the firm, chooses not to sell its stake.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News