Update: Former senior executive at StarKist charged in ongoing fed price fixing case

A former senior executive of StarKist Co. has been charged by the US Justice Department through an information complaint, relating to the ongoing federal investigation into price fixing in the seafood packaged industry.

And StarKist has confirmed in a statement to Samoa News that the company had received a USDOJ subpoena for information into the price fixing probe, which first surfaced two years ago through court documents in civil lawsuits against the nation’s major canned tuna producers including StarKist, Chicken of the Sea International and Bumble Bee Seafood.

Filed May 30th at the federal court in San Francisco, the USDOJ has charged Stephen L. Hodge with one-count of price fixing. The complaint alleges that the defendant was employed as senior vice president of sales at “Company B” from May 2010 until December 2013 - during which time “Company B” was a producer of packaged seafood and was engaged in the sale of packaged seafood in the US and elsewhere.

While Company B was not identified by name in the complaint, Samoa News did get confirmation from industry sources that Hodge was a senior executive employed with Pittsburgh-based StarKist, which owns and operates StarKist Samoa cannery in Pago Pago.

Responding to Samoa News inquiries, StarKist corporate spokesperson Michelle Faist provided a company statement, which states that, “In 2015, StarKist Co. received a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice seeking information as part of a packaged seafood industry investigation.”

“StarKist has cooperated and is continuing to fully cooperate with the investigation,” the statement says.  “Steve Hodge is a former employee who left the company in December 2013 and has had no affiliation with StarKist since that time.”

Electronic court records show that Hodge is scheduled to make an initial appearance on June 28th before US District Court Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler.

The USDOJ complaint alleges that Hodge and his coconspirators “knowingly entered into and engaged in a combination and conspiracy to fix, raise, and maintain the prices of packaged seafood — which includes shelf stable tuna fish sold in the US.”

Its alleged that the defendant and his coconspirators did, among other things, “engage in conversations and discussions and attended meetings with representatives of other major packaged-seafood-producing firms” to carry out the price fixing scheme.

Additionally, the defendant and his coconspirators allegedly agreed and reached mutual understanding during these conversations, discussions, and meetings, to fix, raise and maintain the prices of packaged seafood sold in the US.

It’s further alleged that the defendant and coconspirators negotiated prices and issued price announcements for packaged seafood in accordance with the agreements and mutual understandings reached.

According to the complaint, price fixing is a felony, with maximum prison term of 10 years; a fine of $1 million, or two times the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater; and not more than 3 years of supervised release.

Hodge is now the third person charged in the federal probed into the price fixing of packaged seafood in the US. The other two, Walter Scott Cameron and Kenneth Worsham, who are both executives of Bumble Bee Seafood, were charged last December. Then last month, the federal government charged Bumble Bee itself in connection with price fixing.

The complaint against Cameron, Worsham and Bumble Bee are pending before the federal court in Sacramento, California.

The criminal cases are separate from the more than 1,500 plaintiffs in civil lawsuits against the canned tuna companies, overseen by the federal court in San Diego, which was informed June 1st by the USDOJ about the case against Hodge.