Mild Monday morning for Newlyn in November.

Not a breath of wind at first light this morning in Newlyn...

this "Johnny Dory" will put a smile on young Mr Cleave's face later this morning when it arrives in Port Isaac...

the market was brimming with gillnet fish this morning...

with plenty of hake form the Stelissa...

and Silver Dawn...

along with a handful of blues...

and spurdog landed under licence...

and a good selection of haddock...

while the beam netter Ocean Pride filled the second chillroom...

 with her huge landing of pollack...

along with the beam trawler, Billy Rowney's megrims...

red mullet...

monk tails...

and plaice...

quickly palleted ready for despatch to individual buyers...

one grandaddy squid...

and a decent sized turbot...

added to the trip of lemons...

and ray...

these two company's vessels supply Newlyn with the bulk of the fish landed...

over in the fridge the handliners's fish includes mackerel from Cap'n Cod, happy to give the local bass a break for a day...

the odd pristine red mullet...

while some bass still found its way ashore...

all set to land, the Ygraine...

and an aerial view of her immaculate working deck...

just some of the fishing and nav lights these vessels must carry...

what was once a stony beach, Keel Alley now hosts grass decorated with autumnal leaves...

up for some repairs, the Mordros which is Cornish for 'sound of the sea'...

these pots have been lost for many many months if not years...

once the replacement vessel arrives for the Nicola of Ladram the two boats will share around 5,000 pots between them - being able to manage so many pots these big new crabbers now fish over a considerable area...

if all those pots were shot in a single string, set 15 fathoms apart, from just north of Lands End they would reach Lundy Island...

it is not often the Mary Williams pier is devoid of boats , this morning jut the one crabber landing and one between trips...

out in the bay the Trinity House vessel Galatea is flanked by handliners fishing for mackerel...

today, Vince would have been sorely tried by a shortage of his favourite crisps on the Newlyn Co-op shelves.

 

Have DEFRA missed something?

We are always being told to "read the terms and conditions' - many in the fishing industry may feel DEFRA have shown dereliction in their duty to do so on their behalf.

As Article 25 says:

(1) When distributing catch quotas and effort quotas for use by fishing boats, the national fisheries authorities must use criteria that—

• (a)are transparent and objective, and
• (b)include criteria relating to environmental, social and economic factors.

(2) The criteria may in particular relate to—

• (a)the impact of fishing on the environment;
• (b)the history of compliance with regulatory requirements relating to fishing
• (c)the contribution of fishing to the local economy;
• (d)historic catch levels.

(3) When distributing catch quotas and effort quotas for use by fishing boats, the national fisheries authorities must seek to incentivise—

• (a)the use of selective fishing gear, and
• (b)the use of fishing techniques that have a reduced impact on the environment (for example that use less energy or cause less damage to habitats).

Seeing is believing.

"Fishrot Files" - Parts 1 & 2

Today WikiLeaks publishes over 30,000 documents (the first of two batches) it has obtained from a whistleblower within SAMHERJI, a multinational fishing company based in Iceland. They expose corrupt schemes by the company in Namibia to gain access to rich fishing grounds off the African country’s shores.

The documents are dated from 2010 to 2016, the period during which the company gained its foothold in Namibia. SAMHERJI has now become the biggest single recipient of fishing quotas in the country. The documents (which include e-mails, internal reports, spreadsheets, presentations and photos) expose how the company spent millions of dollars in pay-offs to senior Namibian officials and politicians in order to ensure growing and continued access to the country's resources.

It also exposes that lofty promises by SAMHERJI, to build infrastructure in the country and create jobs, were never fulfilled. On the contrary, the company used its international corporate structure to transfer proceeds from the operations straight out of the country. This was done through intermediaries it controls in Cyprus and in the tax-haven of Mauritius.

Today’s released files also demonstrate how these same tools were used to transfer funds to a secret account, set up by SAMHERJI in Dubai, for the sole purpose of transferring kick-backs to the corrupt entities in Namibia.

SAMHERJI currently has operations in Iceland, Germany, Poland, U.K., the Faroe Islands, Canada, France, Spain, Portugal as well as Namibia. The company has been fast-growing in the last two decades and has a turnover in the excess of $700 million.

The documents were provided by Mr. Jóhannes Stefánsson, the former Managing Director of SAMHERJI´s operations in Namibia. He has decided to come forward as a whistleblower and testify about the activities of the company. Mr. Stefánsson is also cooperating with anti-corruption authorities and police in Namibia, who have been investigating the case for close to a year. The Namibian authorities have sought assistance with the investigation from their counterparts in Dubai, Mauritius, Cyprus, Norway and Iceland. The reason for Norway’s involvement is that some of the Cyprus-based companies belonging to SAMHERJI used Norwegian bank accounts to transfer funds.

The first part of the release is published by WikiLeaks in conjunction with reporting by both WikiLeaks and its media partners, Kveikur, the investigative unit of the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service (RUV), the Icelandic newspaper Stundin, and the Namibian daily The Namibian. The second part of the release is expected in 2-3 weeks when Al-Jazeera and other media partners will publish their findings.

Today WikiLeaks releases documents pertaining to the Fishrot case that have come to light as a result of investigation into bribes, money laundering and tax evasion. These investigations have been launched by several institutions across Norway, Iceland and Namibia as a result of WikiLeaks' Fishrot publication earlier this month.

The first document details internal exchanges between staff at DNB, Norway’s largest bank, from April 2018 to 2019, discussing how to respond to AML flagging (anti-money laundering) from Bank of New York Mellon. Specifically it relates to payments from the international fishing company Samherji to JPC Ship Management (Cyprus), a crew management company supplying services to Samherji.

The second document outlines how DNB (the Norwegian bank) carried out a detailed assessment in 2017 of JPC Ship Management in accordance with KYC principles (Know Your Customer) and did not seem to find anything wrong, despite being classified as a high-risk customer. Another company associated with Samherji financial transactions, Cape Cod FS (Marshall Islands), however was evaluated using the very same principles and its accounts were closed as the bank could not determine who the owner was.

The third document shows how DNB finally decided to terminate its accounts with JPC Ship Management only after receiving AML flagging from Bank of New York Mellon:

“Conclusion: The client is not in need of Norwegian account or within LCI strategy. The client does not have AML Policy and there is considerable risk related to transactions to Russia and Ukraine. The necessary resources to manage the sanction risk will be too high and the client has already disrespected instruction regarding resend once. Our recommendation is offboarding the client. “

Also published today is a spreadsheet overview of transactions to and from various bank accounts of companies owned by and linked to the fishing company Samherji. They include Cape Cod FS (a Marshall Island company), JPC Ship Management (a Cypriot company) and Tundavala (a firm in Dubai set up primarily for Namibian entities to receive bribes from Samherji). The Tundavala payments continued at least until January 2019. This spreadsheet is not an original, however it is derived from the original spreadsheet which cannot be published for reasons of source protection. The original spreadsheet has been verified by WikiLeaks and investigative journalists of their media partners.

Fishrot Files - Part 3 will be released soon with the addition to the searchable database.

Al-Jazeera Investigates will air its film “Anatomy of a Bribe” based on the Fishrot Files on December 1st.

Media Partners

Icelandic National Broadcas ting Service (RUV) Investigative program Kveikur

Stundin, newspaper

The Namibian, newspaper

Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, (NRK)

Al-Jazeera, Investigates

Joseph A. Farell contributed to this Article.

Leaked Documents C-Risk-assessment-JPG-Shipmanagement_Cyprus_LtdB-Cape_Cot_FS_Ltd-DocsA-DNB-Bank-Asa-Mail-re-JPCD-DNB_selected

Finest inshore fish for #FishyFriday in Newlyn.

Not a netter in sight but plenty of crabbers still in port as another week of fish from the most diverse fishing grounds in the UK comes to a close...

a handful of dogfish......

and, unusually, for a beam trawler, the Twilight III picked up a few bass this week...

though there were plenty of MSC Certified Cornish hake from those champions of quality fish aboard the gill-netter Ygraine...

and a late season splash of reds will keep Mr Cleeve happy...

even Falfish's gurnards were looking particularly bright...

while the inshore boats put ashore a good mix of megs...

monk...

and John Dory...

landed in even larger quantity by the big beam trawler along with these Dovers...

one day they may change the name to Cornish Sole on the tallies...

monk tails a-plenty...

as were the mackerel with the hand liners enjoying an excellent run of fish in the bay...

name this crustacean...

they are not called 'silver darlings' for nothing...

cuttlefish landings are barely registering this year so far...

most of the crabbing fleet are in...

as are a few of the chain gang...

stirrings around the IFCA fisheries patrol boat St Piran...

our Plymouth brethren...

one sardine skipper is doing his bit to 'green' the planet.

 

Spread the MMO news! Additional quota for capped licence vessels remains open.

This news needs spreading to all four corners!

The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) will accept new applications by capped licence vessels for additional quota until early December following a positive early response to its initiative.

Under this scheme, which is being run in partnership with selected Producer Organisations, owners or skippers of vessels under 10m long with licences limiting their annual quota stock catch to 350kgs can apply for more opportunities for the remainder of 2021.

The one-time offer means a small amount of the additional quota England received from the Trade and Cooperation Agreement will be distributed via the selected Producer Organisations. It will enable the capped vessels to fish above their annual limit for quota stocks before 1 January 2022.

The scheme was devised at pace in response to concerns from a number of small-scale fishers. It is hoped it will help them weather some of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on markets for non-quota stocks, combined with the consequences of a poor fishing year.

The stocks covered by this initiative are available by emailing:

InshoreQuotaManager@marinemanagement.org.uk. 

New applications for additional quota should be emailed to this address and include vessel details, which stocks skippers plan to catch and in what quantities.