The United States Department of the Treasury has sanctioned this Friday those responsible for two Chinese fishing companies accused of abuses against Human Rights in the workplace and of fishing without permits or after deliberately providing erroneous information to the authorities.
These sanctions are part of the so-called Global Magnitsky Law on Human Rights Responsibility by which the US declares itself capable of unilaterally prosecuting foreign citizens accused of acts of corruption or violations of fundamental rights.
In this case, the sanctions target Li Zhenyu and Xinrong Zhuo, respective presidents of Dalian Ocean Fishing Co. Ltd. and Pingtan Marine Enterprise (the latter listed on the Nasdaq), along with eight other affiliated entities and 150 fishing vessels with a “reputation for rampant abuse of crew members” and involved in “illegal, unreported and unregulated” fishing practices.
The US government denounces cases such as the one that occurred on a Pingtan Fishing boat, where the crew members took seven months to contact their families only to find out that they had not been paid. When a crew member asked to leave the ship, food was withheld for three days.
As a result of the sanctions, all property and interests in property of the designated persons that are in the United States, or in the possession or control of United States persons, will be automatically stopped.
Likewise, this order has been extended to 78 vessels linked to Pingtan Fishing and 47 vessels from its subsidiary Honglong, as well as another 32 from Dalian Ocean Fishing.
