Prosecutors, defense attorneys spar over letter in tuna CEO criminal trial

SAN FRANCISCO -- Christopher Lischewski, the former Bumble Bee Foods CEO accused of directing a scheme to fix canned tuna prices, mentioned Monday an anonymous email from an unidentified whistleblower detailing the conspiracy that prosecutors argued he purposefully ignored.

After the federal judge overseeing the trial overruled objections from his counsel to stop further questioning, Lischewski said the note passed onto him from the board of directors was simply a "poorly written document" that raised "a wide variety of accusations."

"I received a copy of an unsigned, unedited letter from a board member that I read with interest," he said. "There was nothing specific in there that gives me an indication of an [anticompetitive] violation."

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen did not allow the email to be shown to the jury but permitted examination on the subject after Lischewski admitted seeing a document notifying him of potential illegal price-fixing within the company.

Lischewski, who resigned as CEO of Bumble Bee in 2018, is accused of leading a plot that included StarKist Co. and Chicken of the Sea. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Bumble Bee pleaded guilty to price-fixing in May 2017 and paid a $25 million fine. Two of the company's executives, Kenneth Worsham and Walter Scott Cameron, agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors for potential leniency.

In a contentious back-and-forth outside the presence of the jury and his client, defense attorney Elliot Peters accused Department of Justice attorneys of knowingly ignoring rulings barring examination over the letter from a member of the board of directors.

"If I did that, I'd be in a cell back there right now," the Keker Van Nest & Peters parter said. "You ruled twice, and they showed the witness the document and asked questions about it."

While it was ruled inadmissible, Chen said, "It was fair to ask [Lischewski] generally about his impression and his reaction," given he referred to the document first.

The federal prosecutors alleged the three companies colluded to fix canned tuna prices from November 2010 to December 2013. According to the antitrust division of the Department of Justice's indictment Lischewski led the conspiracy. U.S. v. Lischewski, 18-CR0203 (N.D. Cal., filed May 16, 2018).

Nearing the end of his defense, Lischewski detailed on Monday a hyper competitive "price war" during the time period federal prosecutors say he directed a vast conspiracy to coordinate canned tuna prices.

Starkist and Chicken of the Sea were consistently undercutting Bumble Bee's prices amid "record-paced fish inflation" in 2011, according to Lischewksi, who referred to his competitors as "irrational actors." He said they waged an aggressive campaign to attack the company's market share.

But in 2012, Starkist similarly increased the prices of its products as fish prices remained historically high, Lischewski continued.

"All companies were forced to take list price increases," he said.

Dongwon Enterprise-owned StarKist Co. was ordered to pay $100 million in October 2018 after pleading guilty to felony price-fixing charges while Tri-Union Seafoods-owned Chicken of the Sea escaped prosecution because it alerted the Department of Justice to the alleged crimes.

Facing massive fines and potential liability from criminal fines and civil lawsuits stemming from the alleged price-fixing conspiracy, Bumble Bee, the largest North American packaged seafood seller, filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 21. It has spent "10s of millions of dollars in defense costs," which resulted in it defaulting on roughly $650 million of debt, according to bankruptcy court filings

The San Diego-based company has agreed to sell its assets to Taiwan-based FCF Co. for roughly $925 million.

There are three class actions from consumers, retailers and distributors in addition to eight other complaints from grocers, making their way through the courts.