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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The former chief executive of Bumble Bee Foods LLC, Chris Lischewski, was found guilty of price-fixing on Tuesday, a court filing showed.
The San Francisco jury that found Lischewski guilty also found that he conspired with both StarKist and Chicken of the Sea to fix prices for packaged seafood sold in the United States, according to the filing in federal court in San Francisco.
The Justice Department had alleged that Lischewski agreed to fix prices in meetings and other communications from November 2010 until December 2013.
Bumble Bee agreed in May 2017 to plead guilty to one count of price-fixing and to pay a criminal fine of $25 million.
The canned tuna market in the United States is dominated by three companies: Thai Union Group Plc’s Chicken of the Sea, Bumble Bee and StarKist. StarKist is a subsidiary of the Dongwon Group of South Korea.
Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Cynthia Osterman
