No jail for Hawke's Bay Seafoods after settlement reached on regulations breaches

The company says a "negotiated settlement" was reached with the Crown just before Christmas. Photo / File

The directors of multi-level Napier-based fishing giant Hawke's Bay Seafoods won't be facing imprisonment over convictions for multiple breaches of fisheries regulations, according to a statement issued on behalf of the company yesterday.

The company says a "negotiated settlement" had been reached with the Crown just before Christmas, and adds in a statement that none of the directors or management face imprisonment.

At a judge-alone Wellington District Court trial which started in May, scheduled for 16 weeks but taking seven months, the company, directors and brothers Nino and Joe D'Esposito, manager Marc D'Esposito, two associated companies, and four boat skippers, had faced a combined total of 355 charges.

But the statement says the "vast majority" of the allegations against the company were withdrawn during the trial, as were all those against the skippers.

While some offences under the Fisheries Act carry maximum penalties of up to five years imprisonment, and fines up to $250,000, some are punishable by fine only.

Sentencing on charges still before the court - all understood to be fine-only - is tentatively scheduled for a hearing next month, but is expected to take place in February or March.

The charges arose from an inquiry which included a combined agencies search headed by fisheries manager the Ministry of Primary Industries at the company's headquarters on the corner of Pandora Rd and West Quay, Napier, in September 2014, and was based on a series of fishing operations before that time.

Hawke's Bay Seafoods has been operating in Napier for 26 years and now works across all facets of the industry from catching and processing to wholesaling, retailing and exporting, providing employment for about 280 people in Hawke's Bay.

Among its operations is a joint-venture ownership with Ngati Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated of the trawler Glomfjord, bought in Denmark for $3.5 million in late 2016. It reached New Zealand in March and fished out of Nelson and off the West Coast for several months before arriving at Napier Port in November to fish mainly about 800km to the east in the area of the Chatham Rise.

It heads for the Rise again on Tuesday targeting hoki for export to China and is scheduled to go into dry-dock in March for the fitting of freezing facilities most suitable for the species.