Legal issues linger around the Bering Sea Aleutian Islands crab rationalization program, touching on federal standards for allocation of fishing privileges and two major components that have yet to be implemented in any of the other 14 catch share programs around the nation.
Both components — processor quota shares and binding price arbitration — drew questions from the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust division, which recommended in 2003 and in 2004 that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration not adopt either measure for the Alaska crab fishery.
Captains and crew who received about 36 percent of the vessel catch pre-rationalization feel they were disenfranchised in the initial allocation process and say the council's share distribution of 97 percent to vessel owners, 3 percent to captains and nothing to the crew did not recognize their historical participation in the crab fishery and violate the Magnuson-Stevens Act requirement that any quota allocation must be "fair and equitable."
Read the Alaska Journal of Commerce story in full