Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson recently announced that Christopher Lischewski, formerly the CEO of Bumble Bee brand tuna, will pay US$100,000 to Washington for his role in a canned tuna price-fixing scheme that artificially inflated the price of tuna from the three largest national brands: Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea, and StarKist.
Washington was the first state to sue the companies and the first to reach a legally-binding agreement with Lischewski, who is now serving a 40 month sentence in federal prison in Arizona after a jury found him guilty of criminal price-fixing.
The price-fixing conspiracy led to Washington consumers overpaying millions of dollars for packaged tuna. The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) is investigating the precise effect on Washingtonians as the case continues.
According to the AGO, for years, Lischewski worked with the executives of Chicken of the Sea and StarKist, the largest manufacturer of canned tuna in the world, to artificially control the prices consumers paid for packaged tuna. Under the scheme, a consumer who would have normally paid US$1 for a five-ounce can of chunk light tuna — one of the most popular tuna products on the market — would instead have paid US$1.08 as a result of this conspiracy.
“Washingtonians are struggling,” Ferguson said. “They don’t need to be paying any more money for basic food items because corporate executives engaged in an illegal price-fixing scheme. I will hold corporate executives personally accountable for illegal schemes that hurt Washingtonians.”
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