US fish buyers update claim against salmon farmers
A group of United States fish buyers who are suing Norway’s biggest salmon farmers for alleged price fixing have been allowed to revise their class action to clarify the legal grounds for their case.
The defendants – Mowi ASA, Grieg ASA, SalMar ASA, Lerøy Seafood Group ASA, and Cermaq Group AS – had argued that they did not believe the plaintiffs’ complaint stated a “rule of reason” claim, Lawstreetmedia.com reports.
In response, the fish buyers sought and were granted court permission to clarify that their claim under the Sherman Antitrust Act can be judged either under the per se or rule of reason standard.
Market manipulation
According to the underlying complaint in the case, the salmon market is vulnerable to manipulation because the spot market for salmon in Oslo, Norway is “the most important benchmark for salmon prices around the world”.
In particular, Mowi processing subsidiary Morpol, elected to purchase salmon from the spot market rather than transferring internally, even though that act served no competitive purpose, according to the plaintiffs.
“Morpol’s spot market purchases create the appearance of greater consumer demand for these fish than actually is present in the market and that increases and/or stabilises salmon prices at supra-competitive levels when these spot trades are reported to market participants,” claimed the US fish buyers.
Two years
The case, in the Southern Florida District Court, has been going on for two years and was brought by Euclid Fish Company; Euro USA Inc.; Schneider’s Fish and Sea Food Corporation; and The Fishing Line LLC, individually and “on behalf of all others similarly situated”.
It was prompted by European Commission (EC) and US Department of Justice investigations into what were said to be unexplained price increases in the salmon market.
The EC investigation included raids on offices of the Norwegian farmers’ subsidiaries in the UK, which was still in the EU, and the Netherlands. It was believed the EC was using the raids to see if it could find back door access to information about the parent companies, as it doesn’t have jurisdiction in Norway.
All the salmon farmers involved in the case and investigations have denied any wrongdoing.
Read the revised complaint by the US fish buyers in full here.
