By James Peacock

If you have ever been to Mount Kisco Seafood, you have probably noticed that most days, there are two different kinds of farm-raised salmon to choose from. The store sells more farm-raised salmon on a given day than any other kind of fish. What you may not know, however, is that many of the farm companies who provide this salmon have agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars to those markets who have bought from them, as part of a class action lawsuit.  

Between April 2013 and November 2022, it was found that several of these companies were conspiring with one another to fix and control the prices of farm-raised salmon to be sold and distributed in the United States. Joe DiMauro, who has owned Mount Kisco Seafood for more than 40 years, filed his claim to receive payment as part of this civil suit prior to the February 17 deadline. Joe estimates to have purchased approximately 5,500 pounds of salmon per year from the salmon-farm companies in question between April 2013 and the end of 2022, and potentially stands to receive significant financial reimbursement from the lawsuit.  

“I had always wondered how it was possible that the big three [Cermaq Group, Grieg Seafood, SalMar ASA] were always the same price, regardless of outside factors [that would influence the market],” Joe said.  

As a veteran of the fish business, Joe said that nothing surprises him in the industry anymore. Having taken over as owner of Mount Kisco Seafood in 1980, Joe spent several decades personally going to and from the old Fulton Fish Market, then in downtown Manhattan, several times a week to purchase his fish. He, like many others in the industry who did business directly with the Fulton Market before it moved to the Bronx in 2005, has many fond memories of the old market, an oft-romanticized institution of a bygone New York City. He does, however, recall a variety of sketchy practices that were loosely accepted, such as price-fixing or skimping on certain amounts of product from shipments being sold to markets like his. Given the history of omnipresent organized crime and mob activity often associated with the old market, it makes sense that such practices would have been accepted as the norm.  

Though that era at the Fulton Market and others like it are now in the distant past, this class action lawsuit, coming off the heels of a 2019 criminal investigation opened by the United States Department of Justice, indicate that the fish industry has not been cleansed of illegal activity. Price fixing directly violates Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust laws, harming capitalist competition amongst companies, and harming consumers alike. Though the Department of Justice dropped their criminal investigation into these companies in January, this came only after the companies in question agreed to pay $85 million to settle the direct class action lawsuit and $33 million to settle indirect commercial class action lawsuit, respectively, in May of last year.  

Joe DiMauro filed his claim to receive compensation as part of the latter lawsuit through Refund Advisors, LLC, who reached out to him in January. While he acknowledges that it would be nice to receive some kind of compensation from the lawsuit, Joe makes clear he isn’t losing sleep over whatever the result may be. A true fish-man at heart, he understands the foundation of his business is in providing his loyal customers with fish of the highest quality, never cutting corners to save a quick buck.  

“I don’t think the store has been directly harmed by these practices. I’m not going to go and get a lesser quality of fish, from a place where the farm practices may be horrific, just because it may be cheaper,” he explained.  

However, such practices, “harm the final consumer, and it would be nice if I could pay a dollar to two dollars less,” he conceded.  

Though Joe is not overly concerned about the financial implications of this lawsuit for him personally, he does believe that the suit will go a long way in discouraging other fish companies from engaging in illegal or unethical activities such as price-fixing: 

“These guys are going to get spanked on the butt, and it’s going to hurt their pocketbooks, and I think that other fish farms are going to be looking at it. A lot of places are going to look at [the financial figures in the lawsuit] and say, ‘I don’t think it is a great idea to be doing this anymore.’”