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Bumble Bee exec pleads guilty to fixing prices of canned tuna

December 6, 2016: The SeafoodSource

"Bumble Bee Senior Vice President of Sales Walter Scott Cameron has agreed to plead guilty to a charge that he helped fix the prices of canned tuna sold throughout the United States." "The one-count felony charge was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco, and Cameron’s guilty plea acknowledges that he and unidentified co-conspirators agreed to fix the prices of packaged seafood from as early as 2011 until about 2013."
"A number of American retailers, including Walmart, have recently sued Bumble Bee Foods, StarKist and Tri-Union Seafoods, the owner of Chicken of the Sea – dubbed the “big three” tuna companies because they own a combined 70 to 80 percent of the multibillion-dollar packaged tuna industry in the United States – for fixing prices. But their suits have been held up due to a motion filed by the DOJ in January to stay discovery in the civil cases brought by retailers, and another suit brought by U.S. consumers, in order to aid an ongoing federal grand jury investigation into the matter."
"The Walmart suit alleges that the “big three” carried out their scheme through in-person meetings, as well as through emails and telephone calls. The scheme was aided by close relationships between both the executives at the companies and by intermingled business relationships, such as the co-packaging deal that had Chicken of the Sea packing Bumble Bee’s product in its Lyons, Georgia plant and Bumble Bee packing Chicken of the Sea’s products in its Santa Fe Springs, California plant, the retailers allege."