August 20, 2012 — The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York late last week ordered three individuals to pay more than USD 54 million in restitution to the South African government for illegally harvesting rock lobsters from its waters.
It is the largest penalty ever handed out for violations of the Lacey Act, which prohibits the trade of wildlife and plants that were illegally harvested, transported or sold. The ruling of the case (1:03-cr-00308-LAK-AJP) now goes to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the U.S. District Court for affirmation.
In 2007, Arnold Bengis, David Bengis and Jeffrey Noll were not ordered to pay restitution, but the Second Circuit Court in 2011 reversed the decision, saying South Africa has a “property right in illegally harvested lobsters” and that under that country’s laws, the government is “authorized to seize illegally harvested lobsters, sell them and retain the proceeds.” Last week's District Court decision upheld that ruling.
The Second Circuit ruled, following the Ocean and Land Resource Assessments Consultants (OLRAC) method, that restitution be calculated by multiplying the number of poached lobsters by the corresponding market price at the time of the offenses, which occurred from 1987 to 2001. The total calculated was USD 61,932,630.
The defendants, whose restitution totals USD 54,883,550 because USD 7,049,080 had already been paid to South Africa, argued the OLRAC method is not reliable. The lobsters they harvested were alleged taken when the quota had already been reached (they were also accused of overharvesting Patagonian toothfish, or Chilean sea bass). The U.S. government also contends that all of the illegally harvested lobsters were shipped to the United States, a claim the defendants denied.
Read the full story at SeafoodSource.com.