Williams Kastner attorneys possess decades years of practical and professional experience in the seafood industry. They are sophisticated, well connected and knowledgeable. Our practice offers one of the few “full-service” seafood industry practice groups on the west coast, representing clients from Mexico to the Bering Sea and Alaska.
Our Seafood Industry Team represents businesses from all sectors of the seafood industry — from the water to the plate. We represent harvesters, processors, secondary processors, reprocessing entities, seafood brokers and traders – foreign and domestic, trucking and marine transportation interests and the many venders that support the industry. The members of our Seafood Industry team have considerable experience in negotiating and preparing sophisticated agreements peculiar to the seafood industry including output sales, custom processing, vessel charters and agreements attendant to mergers and acquisition transactions. We also routinely represent clients before the Pacific Fishery Management Council, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
As part of our practice, we represent owners and operators of large fishing and fish processing vessels and routinely handle the purchase, sale, transfer and documentation of fishing, processing and tendering vessels. Additionally, we represent these same parties in a variety of matters including charters, crew contracts, insurance coverage and risk assessment, pollution and defending their interests before the state agencies and courts, the Coast Guard and the National Marine Fisheries Service with enforcement matters.
Members of our firm are active in the Northwest Fisheries Association, Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, North Pacific Fishing Vessel Owners Association and Bering Sea Crabbers Association, United Catcher Boats and the Fisherman’s Memorial Fund, to name a few.