January 11, 2014 — The Maine Lobstermen’s Association hopes this will be the year it gets relief from a 56-year-old federal restriction that limits what the trade group can say about the management of the state’s largest commercial fishery.
The association hopes the U.S. Department of Justice will lift a consent decree that it imposed in 1958 – the year after the group lost an antitrust lawsuit that alleged it was trying to set prices paid to lobstermen.
The Maine Lobstermen’s Association started its efforts to have the consent decree lifted in 2010, said Patrice McCarron, the group’s executive director.
“We’re hoping to see that through this year,” McCarron said. “We don’t want to be vulnerable as an organization. We want to be able to advocate at the right level, so we were proactive and made a request to have the consent decree lifted.”
Removing the 1958 rules would give the association the freedom to weigh in on how the $340.7 million fishery in Maine is managed, including such information as the number of traps being used. Regardless of the consent decree, the Sherman Antitrust Act prohibits the group from discussing pricing.
Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald