On May 23 a 12-person jury unanimously rejected a price-fixing suit brought against ten American and Japanese seafood companies over prices paid to fisherman in Alaska’s Bristol Bay. By that point, however, other defendants had paid $40 million to settle out of the case. But fishermen shouldn’t expect to see much of that $40 million: their lawyers want $16.5 million as their contingency share, while the defendants who prevailed at trial want at least $11 million to pay their lawyers (Alaska, unlike the 49 other American states, follows a modified loser-pays system, though it seems the state legislature passed a special bill to clarify its application in this case). “Jack Keane, a veteran Bristol Bay fisherman who lives in Anchorage, said he’s not surprised the lawyers might take much of the money. ‘The cynics kind of said, “Well, that’s the way it would go anyways,”‘ he said. ‘God, it’s a messy legal thing.’ … The leading commercial fishing trade group, United Fishermen of Alaska, has said it doesn’t support an appeal and hopes the seafood companies recoup their legal expenses to plow back into an industry they say suffered major damage from the lawsuit in the key salmon market of Japan.” (Wesley Loy, “Lawyers on both sides of salmon case want to get paid”, Anchorage Daily News, Jul. 30).(& see updates Dec. 14, Feb. 22).
Alaskan salmon suit: picking at the bones
On May 23 a 12-person jury unanimously rejected a price-fixing suit brought against ten American and Japanese seafood companies over prices paid to fisherman in Alaska’s Bristol Bay. By that point, however, other defendants had paid $40 million to settle out of the case. But fishermen shouldn’t expect to see much of that $40 million: […]
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