Salmon producers confirm EU Commission raids
The first international salmon producers have confirmed raids by the EU Commission on suspected illegal agreements. The Commission's competition regulators carried out an inspection of Scottish Sea Farms on Tuesday, the Norwegian fish company SalMar announced. The company is in "constructive dialogue" with the EU Commission. Half of SalMar is indirectly owned by the Scottish company.
Photo by Fredrik Öhlander on Unsplash
The Bergen-based Grieg Seafood group confirmed to the Norwegian news agency NTB that there had been investigations into the operation on the British Shetland Islands. The company dismissed a suspicion. "The salmon market is highly competitive and we are not aware of any form of practice that has undermined competition," said company spokeswoman Kristina Furnes.
The EU Commission is investigating the suspicion that salmon companies have colluded illegally and thus violated competition rules. This would mean that consumers in Europe may have paid too high prices for Atlantic salmon in the past. However, the Commission made it clear that the unannounced investigations were not preliminary convictions.
In 2017, per capita consumption of fish in Germany was 13.5 kilograms, according to the Fish Information Centre in Hamburg. Salmon, with a share of 19 percent, is the favourite fish of the Germans, followed by Alaskan pollack, herring and tuna.
Germany imports most of its salmon from aquacultures in Norway. As Norway is not a member of the EU, the Commission can only legally investigate companies in the 28 EU states, including Scotland, which is part of Great Britain./trs/DP/jha (dpa)
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