Bumble Bee Pleads Guilty to DOJ Charges in Tuna Price-Fixing Scheme

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Bumble Bee Foods LLC will reportedly enter a guilty plea in response to a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into claims that the seafood company engaged in an antitrust scheme to fix the prices for shelf-stable tuna.

Bumble Bee will also reportedly pay at least $25 million in criminal fines, but the maximum criminal fine could be as much as $81.5 million if the company is sold, according to the DOJ.

The DOJ charged Bumble Bee with conspiring to fix, raise and maintain the price of packaged seafood sold in the United States between 2011 and 2013. As part of this alleged conspiracy, Bumble Bee representatives met with counterparts from other seafood companies to participate in an anticompetitive scheme to inflate the prices of shelf-stable tuna.

“The charged combination and conspiracy consisted of a continuing agreement, understanding, and concert of action among the defendant and coconspirators, the substantial terms of which were to fix, raise, and maintain prices of packaged seafood,” according to court documents filed Monday by the DOJ.

The DOJ says the conspiracy engaged in by Bumble Bee and its co-conspirators was an unreasonable restraint of interstate commerce and violated Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

“The division, along with our law enforcement colleagues, will continue to hold these companies and their executives accountable for conduct that targeted a staple in American households,” according to a statement by acting Assistant Attorney General Andrew Finch of the DOJ’s antitrust division.

Bumble Bee says it has cooperated with the DOJ’s investigation since it was initially launched.

“We accept full responsibility for needing to earn back any lost trust in our company and will do so by acting with integrity and transparency in every way we operate our business,” Bumble Bees’ Senior Vice President and general counsel Jill Irvin said in a statement.

Bumble Bee is the first seafood company to be charged in the tuna price-fixing conspiracy. The DOJ has not named any other potential co-conspirators that are under investigation.

News of the DOJ probe into Bumble Bee’s alleged tuna price-fixing conspiracy led consumers to file antitrust class action lawsuits against the company. In December 2015, nine class action lawsuits and 44 related cases over the alleged seafood price-fixing scheme were consolidated into multidistrict litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

The seafood price-fixing MDL named Bumble Bee as a defendant as well as alleged co-conspirators StarKist Co. and Tri-Union Seafoods Inc. The litigation, which is titled In re: Packaged Seafood Products Antitrust Litigation, accused the companies of conspiring to fix, raise and maintain the price of seafood.

The California federal judge overseeing the seafood price-fixing MDL dismissed claims related to the alleged price-fixing of other types of seafood but has allowed the claims involving tuna price-fixing to continue.

The United States is represented by Leslie A. Wulff, Manish Kumar and Ann Cho Lucas of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division.

The Bumble Bee Tuna Price-Fixing Lawsuit is United States v. Bumble Bee Foods LLC, Case No. 17-cr-249, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.