Bumble Bee Foods former Chief Executive Chris Lischewski was convicted in a price-fixing conspiracy, capping a years-long U.S. investigation that shook the packaged-seafood industry and pushed Bumble Bee into bankruptcy protection last month. The company’s guilty plea carried a criminal fine of $25 million, a reduced figure that the Justice Department agreed to after Bumble Bee argued that a stiffer penalty would tip it into bankruptcy. Subsequent lawsuits filed against Bumble Bee by its customers — mostly major U.S. grocers — added to the financial pressure, leading the tuna company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors Nov. 21. “But sometimes a fine by the book is in fact so substantial that it can bankrupt the company.”AdvertisementStarkist pleaded guilty to the price-fixing charges in 2018 and also agreed to cooperate. In the case against Lischewski, prosecutors leaned on testimony from his former subordinates, Kenneth Worsham and Walter Cameron, who in 2016 pleaded guilty to price fixing and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

Source: Los Angeles Times December 03, 2019 22:02 UTC