Price-fixing charges for Bumble Bee CEO

The chief executive of Bumble Bee Foods was charged Wednesday with conspiring to fix seafood prices, a year after the tuna company admitted violating federal antitrust laws.

The Justice Department said a federal grand jury in San Francisco indicted Christopher Lischewski on felony charges of conspiring with other companies to fix prices and limit competition for packaged seafood sold in the United States between November 2010 and December 2013.

The indictment did not identify the alleged coconspirators. A private class-action lawsuit has accused Bumble Bee, Starkist and Tri Union Seafoods, also known as Chicken of the Sea, of conspiring to fix U.S. tuna prices.

Bumble Bee, based in San Diego, pleaded guilty last year to a criminal charge of conspiring to fix tuna prices. The Justice Department said the company will be fined at least $25 million. Two of its executives have also pleaded guilty.

“American consumers deserve free enterprise, not fixed prices, so the ( Justice) Department will not tolerate crimes like the one charged in today’s indictment,” Makan Delrahim, assistant attorney general in charge of the department’s Antitrust Division, said in a statement.

Lischewski’s lawyer, John Keker of San Francisco, disputed the accusation.

“Chris Lischewski is a decent and honorable man, who has lived a hardworking and ethical life,” Keker said. “He has been a leader and beacon within the seafood industry for more than 25 years . ... When the facts are known and the truth emerges, Mr. Lischewski will be found not guilty.”