Japan agency suspends licenses of 4 firms for poaching in RF zone.

18/1 Tass 33

TOKYO, January 18 (Itar-Tass) - The Japanese Fisheries Agency
announced on Tuesday that it has suspended the licenses of four fishing
companies that confessed to exceeding the catch quota in the Russian
exclusive economic zone (EEZ) for bribes. This decision has been made on
the results of an investigation that was conducted since last December.
Japanese Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Michihiko
Kano said earlier on Tuesday that all the four suspected companies have
confessed to illegal exceeding the catch quotas in the Russian EEZ.
According to the Kyodo news agency, the four firms, based in Wakkanai
and Kushiro in Hokkaido as well as in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and
Shiogama, Miyagi Prefecture, admitted during an agency probe that they
caught more than their allocated quotas from 2007 to 2009, agency
officials said. The firms are suspected of giving a total of 500 million
yen to the Russian officials to gain approval for Alaska pollack catches
exceeding their quotas under a bilateral agreement.
The allegations surfaced last year during investigations by tax
authorities, who determined that the four firms had concealed income and
ordered them to pay about 200 million yen in back taxes, including
penalties. Russia allowed Japan to catch 10,925 tonnes of Alaska pollack
in its EEZ in 2010, the agency said. Russia's border guard officials
board Japanese fishing boats to monitor their operations there, it said.
At the end of last year, the Japanese Tax Agency found that four
Japanese fishing companies concealed a total of 500 million yen (over 6
million US dollars) from their income in 2007-2009. The companies'
official reportedly confessed that the money had been paid to Russian
officials for illegally exceeding the catch quota in the exclusive
economic zone (EEZ) of Russia. The money, according to the press, was
given directly to Russian observers on board of inspected trawlers or
transferred to bank accounts, including in Cyprus.
Tax officials have already made the companies pay fines and surcharges
amounting to 200 million yen (about 2.4 million US dollars). After that
the Fisheries Agency of Japan conducted its own investigation into the
violation of Japanese fishing legislation and an intergovernmental
agreement between Moscow and Tokyo on catch quotas in the exclusive zone
of the Russian Federation.
Earlier, representatives of a number of other fishing companies in
Japan have admitted to the Yomiuri newspaper that they have also
repeatedly bribed RF officials to illegally increase their catch in the
exclusive economic zone of Russia. Some reportedly continue such
corruption practices also now, according to a survey involving 10 unnamed
presidents and other head of the companies registered on the Hokkaido
Island and in the northeast of the main Japanese island of Honshu,
published by the newspaper.
Japan has for the first time taken punitive measures against firms
exposed of poaching for bribery in the Russian exclusive economic zone.
-0-ezh/ast