Saving Seafood

Justice Department says Trump can undo monument designations

June 18, 2025 — The president has broad legal authority to fully revoke national monument designations, the Justice Department says in a memorandum that could become the basis to withdraw millions of acres from protected status.

The department’s Office of Legal Counsel disavowed a 1938 DOJ determination that presidents can’t revoke a monument designation by a predecessor under the 1906 law known as the Antiquities Act. The May 27 memo, made public last week, noted that Congress gave presidents the power to declare monuments, but that lawmakers never explicitly said he couldn’t decrease the size of one.

President Donald Trump could use the opinion to go farther than he did in his first term, when he reduced the size of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, and allowed commercial fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the coast of New England.

The Biden administration later restored the two Utah monuments to their original size and restored the original protections for the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts monument.

The Justice Department said that if the president has the power to remove protections for a portion of a monument, then he could do so for the entirety of the monument.

Read the full article at Roll Call

Inside Bumble Bee’s long summer of selling itself

November 29, 2019 — On 21 November, the same day it filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Bumble Bee Foods announced it had entered into an agreement with FCF Co., its primary supplier of tuna, which agreed to acquire the company’s assets for approximately USD 925 million (EUR 836 million).

In a statement accompanying the announcement, Bumble Bee President and Chief Executive Officer Jan Tharp said she “anticipates that the transaction will move swiftly and close within 60 to 90 days.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Bumble Bee tuna has filed for bankruptcy

November 27, 2019 — Something fishy is going on.

Bumble Bee Foods, LLC — renowned as for its Bumble Bee canned tuna products — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday, years following a Department of Justice investigation which found evidence of a massive price-fixing scheme by the San Diego-based company.

Taiwanese fish supply chain company FCF Co. plans to put in a $925 million bid for the assets in a deal to be completed within 90 days, CNN reported.

“It’s been a challenging time for our company but today’s actions allow us to move forward with minimal disruption to our day-to-day operations,” Bubble Bee president and CEO Jan Tharp said in a statement.

A staple of American kitchen for over a century, the Bumble Bee brand has been in troubled waters over the past few years.

Read the full story at The Daily News

Canned Tuna Maker Bumble Bee Preps for Bankruptcy Filing

November 18, 2019 — Bumble Bee Foods LLC is preparing to file for bankruptcy within days over mounting legal expenses stemming from its involvement in a conspiracy to fix prices on canned tuna, according to people familiar with the matter.

The San Diego-based company, owned by London-based private-equity firm Lion Capital, is expected to file a chapter 11 petition shortly and will put itself up for sale, the people said. Bumble Bee didn’t respond to a request for comment. Lion Capital, which bought the company in 2010 for $980 million, also didn’t immediately respond.

Bumble Bee pleaded guilty in 2017 and agreed to pay a $25 million fine for having formed a cartel with its two main competitors, Chicken of the Sea and StarKist Co.

The Justice Department subsequently indicted Bumble Bee Chief Executive Christopher Lischewski for his alleged role in the conspiracy. Mr. Lischewski, who pleaded not guilty, took a leave of absence from Bumble Bee last year and is on trial in California federal court.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal

More Norwegian salmon producers receive subpoenas in US DOJ antitrust investigation

November 15, 2019 — Lerøy Seafood, Grieg Seafood, and SalMar each received subpoenas from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday, 15 November, according to press releases from the three Norwegian salmon farming firms.

The subpoenas are part of a criminal investigation by the DOJ’s Antitrust Division into allegations of price-fixing in Norway’s farmed-raised salmon industry, according to the releases.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US launches investigation into Mowi price-fixing allegations

November 14, 2019 — Salmon farming giant Mowi has announced it is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice regarding allegations of price-fixing in Norway’s farmed Atlantic salmon market.

The move by the U.S. DOJ stems from an ongoing investigation by the European Commission into “concerns that the inspected companies may have violated E.U. antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices.” That investigation became public in February, when the E.C. carried out unannounced inspections at the premises of several Norwegian firms involved in the farmed Atlantic salmon sector in Europe.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

DOJ green lights Clipper, Blue North merger

September 12, 2019 — The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has greenlit a proposed merger between the two largest Pacific cod longline companies, sources told Undercurrent News.

The DOJ review of the merger of Clipper Seafoods and Blue North, which is expected to include the Bristol Bay Native Corporation (BBNC) taking a majority stake in the combined company, was undertaken to ensure that the combined company wouldn’t create a monopoly. Sources told Undercurrent that the DOJ’s seal of approval means that the deal is likely to close this week.

Despite the combined company’s heft in the market, Clipper and Blue North argued that there are several factors that go into cod prices, like other species, “so there shouldn’t be any antitrust problems”, sources previously told Undercurrent.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

StarKist ordered to pay USD 100 million fine for role in tuna price-fixing

September 12, 2019 — StarKist & Company has been ordered to pay a criminal fine of USD 100 million (EUR 90.3 million) for its role in a tuna price-fixing conspiracy, the statutory maximum fine.

The decision, which was announced by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on 11 September, comes after the court and the company wrangled over the monetary amount of the fine. StarKist’s attorneys had been pushing to have the fine lowered to USD 50 million (EUR 45.1 million), calling the decision “life or death” for the company, while prosecutors had been pushing for a full fine based on the company’s recent investment in TechPack Solutions, an India-based can and bottle technology firm.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaskan native group still set to buy US Pacific cod catchers if DOJ approves merger

August 1, 2019 — The merger of the two largest US Pacific cod longline catching companies is under review by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), sources familiar with the deal told Undercurrent News.

If the DOJ approves the merger, the combined company will be renamed Blue North Clipper (BNC) and then, around 30 days later, acquired by the Bristol Bay Native Corporation (BBNC), the sources said. BBNC is set to take 75% of BNC, with the existing shareholders of both companies owning the rest.

It’s thought BNC will be relocated to the offices of Clipper, which is seen as being the driver of the deal, they said. It’s also thought Dave Little, the main shareholder in Clipper, will ultimately head up the combined company. Patrick and Michael Burns, the brothers who founded Blue North, will also remain involved, sources said.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Fishing crew charged with shark fin trafficking

December 12, 2018 — The owner and officers of a Japanese-flagged fishing vessel were charged in federal court Tuesday with aiding and abetting the trafficking and smuggling of nearly 1,000 shark fins into and out of Hawaii last month.

During a year-long tuna-fishing expedition, the crew of a Japanese fishing boat —the M.V. Kyoshin Maru No. 20 — allegedly harvested fins from about 300 sharks, at least some species of which are protected under the Endangered Species Act and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

One of those species, the oceanic white tip shark, has declined in population by about 80-95 percent across the Pacific Ocean since the mid-1990s, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

According to a U.S. Department of Justice press release, the crew cut the shark fins off, “in some instances while the sharks were stunned but still alive, and discarded the finless carcasses into the ocean,” all under the supervision of the captain and at the direction of the ship’s officers.

The illegally-harvested fins were discovered in the luggage of 10 Indonesian nationals, who had been employed as fishermen on the boat. The Indonesian fishermen had been dropped off from the fishing boat at a port in Honolulu and were intending to catch a flight to Jakarta.

Read the full story at The Garden Island