Former Bumble Bee CEO Sentenced To Prison For Fixing Prices Of Canned Tuna

Christopher Lischewski, former Chief Executive Officer and President of Bumble Bee Foods LLC, was sentenced to serve 40 months in jail and pay a $100,000 criminal fine for his leadership role in a three-year antitrust conspiracy to fix prices of canned tuna, the Department of Justice announced.

Lischewski was charged on May 16, 2018, in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in San Francisco. After a four-week trial in late 2019, he was convicted on the single count of participating in a conspiracy to fix prices of canned tuna. In imposing Lischewski’s 40-month prison sentence, the Court found that Lischewski was a leader or organizer of the conspiracy and that it affected over $600 million dollars of canned tuna sales.

“The sentence imposed today will serve as a significant deterrent in the C-suite and the boardroom,” said Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “Executives who cheat American consumers out of the benefits of competition will be brought to justice, particularly when their antitrust crimes affect the most basic necessity, food. Today’s sentence reflects the serious harm that resulted from the multi-year conspiracy to fix prices of canned tuna.”

“This sentence is the result of our commitment to holding corporations and senior leadership accountable for their actions, whether they operate in the food supply industry or elsewhere,” said FBI San Francisco Division Special Agent in Charge, John F. Bennett. “This brings us closer to our goal; allowing our citizens to be able to purchase food in an unbiased market within an efficient and fair economy, free of corporate greed.”

Bumble Bee pleaded guilty and was sentenced to pay a $25 million criminal fine. In September, StarKist Co. was sentenced to pay a statutory maximum $100 million criminal fine. In addition to Bumble Bee and StarKist, four executives, including Lischewski, were charged in the investigation. The other three executives pleaded guilty and testified in Lischewski’s trial.

The sentence announced today is a result of the Department’s ongoing investigation into price fixing in the packaged-seafood industry, which is being conducted by the Antitrust Division’s San Francisco Office and the FBI’s San Francisco Field Office. Anyone with information on price fixing, bid rigging, or other anticompetitive conduct related to the packaged-seafood industry should contact the Antitrust Division’s San Francisco Office at 415-934-5300, visit www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.html, or call the FBI tip line at 415-553-7400. Component(s): Antitrust Division

FDR's National Industrial Recovery Act and Robinson‐Patman Act prevented competition while the Agricultural Adjustment Act allowed the Federal government to violate anti-trust laws by usurping the Clayton Antitrust Act.

Unfortunately, the CEO of Bumble Bee along with Chicken of the Sea and StarKists hiearchy (All foreign owned) who are big players in the tuna oligopoly conspired to fix their prices and

1) Hurt the consumer

2) Hurt their wholesalers that paid well over the market price.

The CEO recieved non-public information (Big no-no) and used that to conspire and fix costs.

Scorecard goes as follows:

2004 - 2010. Defendants shared a common canner in American Samoa, Impress, which is allegedly connected to collusive can size reduction. (Through Mr. and Mrs. Pelos *cough, cough* i)

2004. Groups colluded to increase prices of canned tuna at least twice.

2006. Groups colluded to increase prices of canned tuna at least once. “By 2007, defendants became more practiced and ambitious in their collusive designs," allegedly downsizing their can size while raising prices.

2007: The NFI created the Tuna Council, whose only members were the defendants, allegedly.

2008. Alleged collusion on price increases on canned tuna.

2010: Defendants allegedly colluded and raised net prices on canned tuna. Net prices are the prices disseminated to brokers of shelf stable seafood products, and represent the list price, less promotional allowances offered by defendants to reduce the list price.

November 2011 - June 2013: Senior executives and sales personnel of the StarKist, Bumble Bee and Chicken of the Sea allegedly "exchanged emails and had telephone conversations about discounting and promotional practices and terms for the sale of canned tuna to customers." They also allegedly "assured each other that they would not compete regarding the pricing and sale of canned tuna sold to customers."

December 2011 and January 2012: Senior executives and sales personnel of defendants allegedly had telephone conversations "about coordinating and announcing a price increase for a number of products in the second quarter of 2012." Price increases were allegedly "virtually identical" and "other products also increased by identical percentages."

2011 - 2013: StarKist, Chicken of the Sea and Bumble Bee allegedly told customers certain factors in the tuna sector made it necessary to increase tuna prices. They allegedly "cited their own predictions about where the tuna market was heading as the basis for a price increase."

2012 - July 2015: Defendants and their co-conspirators allegedly agreed to avoid FAD-free tuna.

July 2015: Published reports revealed US Department of Justice convened a grand jury to investigate potential antitrust violations by companies in the market for the production, pricing and/or sale of packaged seafood, including canned tuna.

In short, if you are not part of the Federal government, you can't fix prices (Which makes the Federal government a rogue entity/violates the Social Contract, but that is a story for another day).

Commit felony property damage by tearing down a multi thousand dollar statue, be praised as a hero by Democrat politicians (and hear NOTHING from Republicans).

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

I'm wondering when the Feds are going to start enforcing this section of the Fourteenth Amendment. Technically, letting people get away with these kinds of crimes is a violation of that amendment. Not that the actual wording of the actual law matters any more.

I believe it was Ezra Pound who said "What is just is what an Aryan man (liberal, in today's parlance) says is just". In other words, the rule of men, not the rule of law.

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