The Association of Seafood Producers (ASP) has dropped a complaint against Quin-Sea Fisheries related to its claims that the company withheld information required to determine the price of snow crab.
ASP represents seafood-processing companies in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador and is one of the two parties that negotiates the minimum price that will be paid to snow crab harvesters in the province. ASP – along with the Fish, Food, and Allied Workers Union (FFAW) – present information and a price proposal to the Newfoundland and Labrador Standing Fish Prices Setting Panel, which then determines the minimum price buyers must pay to harvesters for snow crab and other species.
The ASP submitted a complaint to the Newfoundland and Labrador Labor Relations Board, alleging Quin-Sea Fisheries – which was purchased by Royal Greenland in 2016 and is a member of ASP – refused to provide sales data on 5- to 8-ounce sections of crab delivered to Boston. According to ASP and the FFAW, the information was required to complete a third-party review of 2024 snow crab sales.
ASP claimed Royal Greenland did not provide the required data to third-party auditor Deloitte, which meant the auditor could not complete a review of the fishery per the Master Collective Agreement (MCA) and Crab Schedule in Newfoundland.
The result, according to the FFAW, was that ASP couldn’t provide settlement payments to harvesters by an 31 October deadline.
“You know we have serious issues in the industry when an association is taking one of their own members to task for breaking an important agreement,” Greg Pretty, then-president of the union, said in a release. “Royal Greenland has time and time again shown our province that they are not interested in operating in good faith and in accordance with provincial labor regulations.”
Quin-Sea said it resisted the application for multiple reasons – including that Deloitte had already completed its work to determine the final settlement price, according to the MCA. Quin-Sea said the CAD 3.75 (USD 2.60, EUR 2.50) per pound price it paid for snow crab purchased in 2024 was greater than the minimum collective agreement on price in 2024. Quin-Sea said the price “is fair to harvesters, and exceeds any final settlement price negotiated by ASP and FFAW.”
Now, ASP has withdrawn its application from the board, ending the dispute.
“Quin-Sea believes that ASP’s application should never have been filed in the first place,” the company said. “Its withdrawal by ASP confirms this position. Quin-Sea has no further public comments at this point in time.”
The snow crab price-setting process has been fraught with controversy in recent years as the FFAW and ASP clashed over what a fair price for crab harvesters should be. In April 2024, the price-setting panel picked the ASP’s minimum price for the season after the process was hit with protests by fishermen. It followed similar troubles in 2023 when the dispute culminated in fishermen refusing to hit the water for six weeks.
That tumultuous start to the 2023 season resulted in the FFAW paying damages to processors after an independent arbitrator determined fishermen refusing to fish was a violation of the Fishing Industry Collective Bargaining Act and the Master Collective Agreement.
The protests and disputes weren’t new then either; in 2022, a difficult negotiation process had fishermen calling for changes in management and a new way to determine pricing.
According to the FFAW, the provincial government is working on changes to the process to “hold processing license holders to account and ensure capacity is available for the fisheries that need it most,” it wrote on its Facebook page.
