Fishermen Reopen Monopoly Suit Against Pacific Seafoods over Acquisition of Ocean Gold
A group of fishermen have sued Pacific Seafood claiming that the company’s pending deal to buy Ocean Gold is in violation of terms in a 2012 settlement of an earlier class-action anti-trust lawsuit. Pacific’s general counsel has dismissed the lawsuit as a “frivolous retread" of the earlier complaint.”The same attorneys initiating this stunt are standing in the way of new investments and new opportunity for the community of Westport. More processing capacity in whiting, shrimp and crab means more boats in the port, opportunities for fishermen and good things for the community,” said Pacific’s attorney Dan Occhipinti.
Seafood imports to the major Chinese city Qingdao totaled 470,000 tons compared to last year. According to John Sackton China is changing international trading patterns in seafood by using more imported product. The result is now a consumer driven demand for imported seafood that has broken far out of the old model - when most expensive imports went only to high end restaurants and hotels says Sackton.
In other news Vietnamese seafood producers in southwestern provinces are going bankrupt. According to major pangasius producer Vinh Hoan many producers who took easy credit were burned after pangasius prices fell with the market oversupplied.
Meanwhile the Russian Pollock season is officially underway with this season’s quota set at 1.72 million tons. The West Bering Sea fishing zone is expected to lead production followed by the Petropavlovsk-Commandor zone and the Northern Kurile.
Finally, Gulf shrimp landings in December were up 26 percent for the month compared to 2013. Landings in 2014 fell just short of last season, but a strong fishing effort across the Gulf States and throughout the fourth quarter helped offset lost fishing time from delays to the season in early May.
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