Ex-Bumble Bee CEO Gets 3-Year Prison Term, a Rarity in Antitrust
Former Bumble Bee Foods LLC chief executive officer Chris Lischewski was sentenced to more than three years in prison for his role in a price-fixing racket, a rare outcome in a U.S. antitrust crackdown.
In December, Lischewski was found guilty by a San Francisco federal jury of conspiring with colleagues and other industry executives to manipulate canned tuna prices, capping a marathon U.S. investigation that shook the packaged seafood industry and ultimately forced Bumble Bee into bankruptcy.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco imposed a $100,000 fine on Lischewski Tuesday on top of a 40-month term of incarceration.
Lischewski’s sentencing comes as the meat industry is facing the most aggressive attack by antitrust authorities in a century. Prosecutors have charged executives at two poultry producers, including the CEO of Pilgrim’s Pride Corp., and hinted at additional charges in the chicken industry. The Justice Department is setting its sights on beef companies in a separate investigation, issuing subpoenas to the four biggest producers — Tyson Foods Inc., JBS SA, Cargill Inc. and National Beef Inc.
Read More: Pilgrim’s Pride CEO Pleads Not Guilty in Price-Fixing Case
Lischewski joins a small group of company leaders who’ve been locked up for price fixing over the last two decades.
The best-known is the late A. Alfred Taubman, the shopping-mall magnate and onetime chairman of Sotheby’s Holdings Inc. He was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to a year and a day in prison for collaborating with rival auction house Christie’s International Plc to fix fees and cheat customers out of roughly $100 million. Taubman was released two months early.
In a case involving Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. and a global conspiracy to fix the price of an animal-feed additive, Michael Andreas, a former vice chairman of the company convicted in 1998, was sentenced to three years in prison.
In 2013, the former president of Sea Star Line LLC, a Florida-based freight carrier, was sentenced to serve five years for price fixing. The owner of a Houston freight forwarding company got 10 months behind bars in January.
Federal prosecutors recommended Lischewski serve eight to 10 years in prison and pay a $1 million fine. His attorneys suggested he serve 12 months of home confinement.
Bumble Bee pleaded guilty to conspiring with Starkist Co. and Chicken of the Sea Inc. to fix prices of canned tuna products from 2011 through 2013. The company, whose guilty plea carried a criminal fine of $25 million, filed for bankruptcy in November.
The case is U.S. v. Lischewski, 18-cr-00203, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).
Read More: Ex-Bumble Bee CEO Can’t Silence Tuna Consumers at Sentencing
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