Second tuna executive agrees to plead guilty to price fixing

A second tuna executive has agreed to plead guilty in federal court in San Francisco to conspiring to fix the prices of packaged seafood, the U.S. Justice Department announced today.

Kenneth Worsham, the senior vice president of trade marketing for Bumble Bee Seafoods, was charged in U.S. District Court today with one count of conspiring with unnamed others to “fix, raise and maintain” the prices of packaged seafood in the United States between 2011 and 2013.

The Justice Department said Worsham agreed to plead guilty and the plea must be approved by a judge. A date for the plea has not been announced.

Previously, Walter Cameron, Bumble Bee’s senior vice president of sales, agreed on Dec. 7 to plead guilty to the same charge.

The department has said that both executives have agreed to pay a criminal fine and to cooperate with the ongoing investigation of antitrust violations in the packaged seafood industry.

Renata Hesse, the acting chief of the department’s antitrust division, said in a statement, “The Antitrust Division and its law enforcement partners are once again sending a strong signal that high-ranking executives responsible for fixing the price of shelf-stable tuna must be held accountable.”

The investigation is being carried out by the San Francisco offices of the antitrust division and the FBI.