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

IWMC World Conservation Trust: Response to Price-Fixing

June 22, 2020 — The following was released by the IWMC World Conservation Trust:

On Tuesday, Chris Lischewski, the driving force behind the creation of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), received a three-year prison sentence in the United States for fixing the price of canned tuna. The former CEO of Bumble Bee Sea Foods is now disgraced beyond recovery.

The story behind this one-billion-dollar price fixing scandal, the biggest and most outrageous industrial subterfuge since Enron, is complex. It involves a web of opportunism and mixed agendas. And what still needs to be exposed is the role of NGOs in facilitating this mega crime.

ISSF lives on even though three of its corporate founders, StarKist, Bumble Bee Sea Foods and Chicken of the Sea, have been found guilty of conspiring to cheat American consumers out of the benefits of competition. Separately, another founding member, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), is being investigated for funding, assisting, and/or turning a blind eye to rape, murder and/or terrorism in Africa in pursuit of its fortress conservation crusade.

On the surface, it made absolutely no sense for tuna producers to get into bed with WWF’s satellite ISSF. In 2010, WWF orchestrated a proposal at CITES COP15 to list bluefin tuna in Appendix I. If it had not been inept at managing its relationship with the European Union, WWF might have succeeded or at least come close go destroying the industry altogether. In the wake of this near disaster, tuna producers were expected to mount a counter offensive, perhaps even withdraw from ISSF. Instead, in what seemed like a tactical blunder on his part, Lischewski promoted the virtues of collaborating with WWF, ISSF and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), which was another WWF creation.

Read the full release here

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 pushing past scandal and bankruptcy with new partnerships and products

March 6, 2020 — Bumble Bee has emerged from years of tumult with a splash: A new owner, new product packaging, new product lines, and, perhaps most significantly, an industry-first partnership with a plant-based food producer, Good Catch.

The San Diego, California, U.S.A.-based tuna company’s travails of the past couple years are well-known. The company was fined USD 25 million (EUR 22.3 million) after pleading guilty in a tuna price-fixing scandal in 2017, then entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy this past November. In January, the company was bought by the Taiwanese company FCF Co. for USD 928 million (EUR 826 million), with which it has a 30-year business relationship.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Proposed settlement from Chicken of the Sea in class-action suit rejected by judge

January 27, 2020 — A proposed settlement between a class of commercial food-preparers and Chicken of the Sea, one of the three U.S. canned tuna companies found to have conspired to fix the prices of their products, has been rejected by the judge overhearing the case.

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California Judge Janis L. Sammartino rejected a payment of USD 6.5 million (EUR 5.9 million), saying it is not clear the settlement provides enough money to those harmed by the price-fixing.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Bumble Bee hoping to pay executive bonuses, over objections of creditors

January 10, 2020 — The creditors of Bumble Bee Foods, which filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2019, have asked the judge overseeing the case to prevent the company from paying year-end bonuses to some of its employees.

Bumble Bee is hoping to pay 37 of its employees enrolled in its Key Employee Incentive Program (KEIP) – created after the company filed for bankruptcy – between USD 1.3 million and USD 3.2 million (EUR 1.16 million and EUR 2.88 million) as a performance bonus for helping the company maintain cash flow during its difficult past few months.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Bumble Bee’s Chris Lischewski convicted of fixing prices of canned tuna

December 4, 2019 — Christopher Lischewski, the former president and CEO of Bumble Bee Foods, was convicted on 3 December, 2019, of helping to orchestrate a price-fixing conspiracy between Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea, and StarKist, the so-called “Big Three” players in the U.S. canned tuna sector.

Lischewski was found guilty of one count of price-fixing by a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of USD 1 million (EUR 900,000). His sentencing has been set for 8 April, 2020. Lischewski’s conviction may also open him up as a target of civil lawsuits filed by parties who overpaid for canned tuna as a result of the price-fixing, according to Eric Snyder, chairman of the bankruptcy practice at Wilk Auslander, a New York City-based law firm.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

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