Ex-Bumble Bee CEO receives 3 many years for tuna value-fixing plan

Now he’ll be the a single paying out time in the can.

The former CEO of Bumble Bee Food items on Tuesday was sentenced to far more than a few a long time in federal prison for his function in a conspiracy to resolve the price of canned tuna.

Christopher Lischewski had been convicted of just one felony depend in the fishy scheme — which afflicted much more than $600 million pounds of canned tuna sales, the U.S. Department of Justice claimed.

Federal prosecutors stated that, from November 2010 to December 2013, Lischewski conspired with other big fish at Bumble Bee and rivals in the marketplace to wipe out competition by location the cost of packaged seafood.

He was identified gill-ty following a four-7 days trial in late 2019.

Prosecutors experienced questioned the decide to hand Lischewski concerning eight and 10 years powering bars and a $1 million good.

But he was enable off the hook a tiny with a sentence of 40 months in the slammer and a a $100,000 penalty.

“The sentence imposed currently will provide as a important deterrent in the C-suite and the boardroom,” reported Assistant Legal professional Normal Makan Delrahim of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.

“Executives who cheat American buyers out of the gains of level of competition will be introduced to justice, notably when their antitrust crimes influence the most primary necessity, food items.”

Bumble Bee — which submitted for bankruptcy very last calendar year — had pleaded guilty in the plot for conspiring with StarKist and Chicken of the Sea to continue to keep costs artificially superior.

The San Diego-centered business was sentenced to fork out a $25 million fine.

In September, StarKist Co. was sentenced to pay out a statutory highest $100 million good.

Hen of the Sea executives blew the whistle on the scheme in 2015, and federal investigators agreed to defend the firm from legal prosecution in exchange for cooperation.

Four execs, which includes Lischewski, had been billed in the probe. The other a few bigwigs pleaded responsible and testified in Lischewski’s trial.