A ruling has been made in a lawsuit involving intellectual property infringements and pitting land-based fish farm Local Ocean of Greenport, N.Y., against an Israeli company.
Filed in a Tel Aviv court in May 2011, the suit involved the proprietary waste and water recycling system technology developed by G.F.A. Advanced Systems and used by Local Ocean. The suit claimed that Local Ocean Chairman Efraim Basson and The Sanit Group of Brooklyn, N.Y., violated their joint venture agreement with G.F.A.
Local Ocean then counter-sued the Israeli company.
But a Local Ocean spokesperson confirmed to SeafoodSource on Wednesday that an Israeli judge has made a final ruling in the case, though the terms of the ruling are not yet available.
“Local Ocean and its partners are glad that there has been a decision made after many attempts to reconcile differences,” said Bason in a statement e-mailed to SeafoodSource. “We feel that we are in a better position now to expand our current business. Further, we will proceed with our plans to look for additional capital to build Local Ocean into one of the premier seafood companies in the USA.”
Local Ocean said it has built the world’s first and only commercial zero-discharge, 100 percent recirculating aquaculture system. The company raises sea bream and branzino and sells the fish to a number of upscale restaurants and regional supermarket chains, including Wegmans, Price Chopper and Shoprite. In fact, Local Ocean was the subject of Wegmans’ “Products We Love” blog in April.
Local Ocean has other species in the pipeline that should be ready for delivery in the first quarter of 2013.
