Fines are cleared from pollock – Newspaper Kommersant No. 19 (7464) dated 02/02/2023

Investors who built fish factories under the investment quota program began to demand fines for violation of the contract – processing less than 70% of the received quota. Claim for almost 2 billion rubles. has already been sent to the structure of the Okeanrybflot holding, co-owned by Senator Valery Ponomarev. Part of the fishery industry considers the requirement unrealistic for the production of products with a deep degree of processing.

The Federal Agency for Fishery has begun imposing fines on companies that have built fish processing plants under the investment quota program, a source in the industry told Kommersant. The agency refers to the violation of the clause of the agreement, according to which investors must process at least 70% of the received quota. A copy of the corresponding claim against Vityaz-Avto LLC, which built a plant in Kamchatka, demanding payment of 1.97 billion rubles. “Kommersant” also has a fine. This company is part of one of the largest fishing holdings in the Russian Federation “Okeanrybflot” of Igor Yevtushka and Senator Valery Ponomarev. The holding “Kommersant” did not answer.

As stated in the appeal of the Federal Agency for Fishery, for 2020 the investment quota of Vityaz-Avto was 14.26 thousand tons of pollock and herring, and for 2021 – 14.47 thousand tons. Consequently, the company was supposed to produce 9.98 thousand tons and 10.13 thousand tons of products in these years, but produced 8.11 thousand tons and 5.99 thousand tons, the Federal Agency for Fishery indicates. If the fine is not paid on time, the appeal says, the agency will go to court. The Federal Agency for Fishery did not provide a comment.

German Zverev, president of the All-Russian Association of Fisheries Industry (VARPE), says that factories that produce products with a deeper degree of processing cannot meet the requirement for production at the level of 70% of the quota. According to industry-specific output coefficients, only 220-230 tons of fillets are obtained from 1 thousand tons of catch, he points out. According to a Kommersant source in the industry, other participants in the program may face similar fines. In total, the Federal Agency for Fishery concluded 24 contracts with investors for the construction of plants, 21 objects were built. According to German Zverev, the total amount of fines could reach 6-6.5 billion rubles, which is comparable to the investments of companies in enterprises.

Sergey Sennikov, Deputy Director of Norebo Management Company, believes that Vityaz-Avto violated the standard due to the lack of sufficient control over the volume of catch that goes for processing, as well as due to the high consumption of raw materials in production. According to him, Norebo makes sure that at least 70% of the catch according to the investment quota goes to production, delivering fish from the fishing area of ​​varying degrees of pre-processing. Dobroflot CEO Alexander Efremov says that his company did not receive claims, as it was building a plant that uses already frozen fish as raw materials – a more expensive semi-finished product, which made it possible to fulfill “obligations that were not thought out from the beginning.”

Lawyer, co-founder of the legal company atLegal Nikolay Titov says that when considering claims against Vityaz-Avto in court, he will establish the onset of conditions for liability, the reasons for non-fulfillment of obligations and has the right to reduce the penalty. Andrey Shubin, senior lawyer at Birch Legal, adds that the Federal Agency for Fisheries can present for execution a bank guarantee that ensures the implementation of the project and collect funds.

According to German Zverev, in order to solve the problem, it is necessary to allow the use of not only the investor’s quota in the processing standard, but also companies from the same group with him. As he recalls, the second stage of the investment quota program is now being planned, the participants of which face similar risks. Alexei Osintsev, President of the Association of Fishing Fleet Owners, notes that when preparing amendments to the law for the second stage, arguments about the need to refine the processing standard were taken into account. Now the government must determine the calculation of a new indicator of fulfillment of the obligation to produce at 60% of the quota, taking into account the norms for the output of finished products, he points out.

Anatoly Kostyrev