San Francisco – StarKist Co. agreed to plead guilty to a felony price fixing charge as part of a broad collusion investigation of the canned tuna industry, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.
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The DOJ said StarKist faces up to a $100 million fine when it is sentenced. Prosecutors allege that the industry’s top three companies conspired between 2010 and 2013 to keep prices artificially high.
“We have cooperated with the DOJ during the course of its investigation and accept responsibility,” said StarKist chief executive Andrew Choe. “We will continue to conduct our business with the utmost transparency and integrity.”
The scheme came to light when Thai Union Group’s Chicken of the Sea attempt to buy San Diego-based Bumble Bee failed in 2015, according to court records. Chicken of the Sea executives then alerted federal investigators, who agreed to shield the company from criminal prosecution in exchange for cooperation.
Bumble Bee Foods last year pleaded guilty to the same charge and paid a $25 million fine, $111 million lower than prosecutors said it should have been. Prosecutors said they feared putting the financially struggling Bumble Bee out of business with a high fine and agreed to let the company make interest-free payments for five years.
Two former executives of Bumble Bee executives and one from StarKist have also each pleaded guilty to price-fixing charges. None of them have been sentenced.
Former Bumble Bee chief executive Christopher Lischewski has pleaded not guilty to a price fixing charge.
“The conspiracy to fix prices on these household staples had direct effects on the pocketbooks of American consumers,” said Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim.
In addition, the three companies face myriad lawsuits from wholesalers, food service companies and retailers such as Walmart, Target and Kroger.
When will they prosecute Dagim Gefen etc for price fixing in the SUPERKoSHER market
Star-Kist cooks their tuna without eviscerating the guts. Therefore, it’s not kosher.
Tuna has 7-8% stomach content which consist of crustaceans which are not kosher.
There is no shishim.
Bumble bee, etc does eviscerate.
California Delight (with all of their other names) buys unlabeled (bright-pack) tuna and labels it themselves, hence there was no mashgiach at the production.
We found clam in his tuna cans.
Star Kist is the best. Who cares what the other guy says. He is irrelevant except to his 5 lapdogs.
I suspect something fishy going on here.
To #2 - I agree 100% with #7 ; Starkist Tuna has an OU on every can; case closed!
” … guilty to a felony price fixing charge as part of a broad collusion investigation …”
Since when is COLLUSION a crime?
Rudy! Rudy!!! Collusion IS A CRIME.