California Crabber Sues Pacific Seafood, Alleging Price Fixing

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — A commercial crabber filed a federal lawsuit in San Francisco Monday alleging one of North America's largest seafood companies engaged in illegal price fixing. Attorneys for Brand Little said the suit was filed on behalf of the fisherman and 1,400 other commercial crabbers spanning California, Oregon and the Washington coast.

The complaint alleges Pacific Seafood deployed a "multipronged strategy of monopsonization, coercion, dumping and secret deals," to suppress prices paid for Dungeness crab. Further allegations include a multi-decade effort to shut down competitors in the region, pursuing anticompetitive agreements with other fish buyers, and "amassing a large captive supply" of Dungeness crab by operating boats itself.

Little argues Pacific Seafood secured "extraordinary power" over the market, extending to other buyers that will not agree to a price until the company sets the standard.

"Pacific Seafood simply needs to take its thumb off the scale and let the free market operate," Little said in a statement Monday. "If Pacific Seafood's manipulation of the Dungeness crab wholesale-input market is not stopped, independent commercial crabbers like myself and the rest of the class will disappear."

In a statement provided to Patch on Tuesday, Pacific Seafood broadly dismissed the allegations outlined in the suit.

"This is a completely baseless lawsuit filed by a fisherman who doesn't do business with us and doesn't know our company at all," said Dan Occhipinti, the company's chief legal officer. "We are confident it will be dismissed quickly."

The suit was filed in the Northern District in California and claims violations to both federal and state level provisions over competition and unfair business practices.