Five of the six ship-owners from Sete and Agde in France, who have been accused of exceeding fishing quotas and quota fraud, have received deferred prison sentences ranging from eight to 24 months, fines of between €15,000 and €50,000 and seizures of €100,000 of value. The sixth ship-owner was cleared.
In line with EU regulations, the 4,671 excess tonnes caught in 2007 were ‘reimbursed’ by ships in the form of reductions of their quotas by between 500 and 1,500 tonnes…