The Oyang 75 was tied up at Lyttelton when the Indonesian crew walked off the vessel citing mistreatment, long hours, and pay issues.
Fines totalling $424,500 imposed on the South Korean officers of a trawler that breached fisheries laws remain unpaid after more than two years, but the trawler has now been confiscated.
The Oyang 75 is now fishing overseas but the Crown is holding a bond against it and will now tell the owners that it must return to New Zealand for a decision about its fate.
The Crown will also demand that the Oyang 77 return to New Zealand under the same arrangement, now that prosecutions against both vessels have led to convictions.
Fines totalling a further $105,000 were today imposed by Judge David Saunders in the Christchurch District Court on the Oyang 75’s factory manager, Tae Won Jo, 53, who had asked for his sentencing to be delayed so that he could argue that “special reasons” applied to him when the others were convicted and sentenced in 2012.
Since then, the case has been to the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court which has upheld Judge Saunders’ decision to impose penalties and then arrange for a hearing on relief from forfeiture to be heard.
The Crown is now required to advertise the forfeiture order so that people such as the vessel’s owner, the fishing permit holder, crew members claiming unpaid wages, or business creditors, can lodge applications for payment.
The hearing regarding the two vessels is then likely to be held next year and could last several days, Crown prosecutor Chris Lange said today.
Officers on both vessels were found guilty of charges of fish dumping – discarding lower value or damaged fish at sea and replacing it with higher value product. The practice breaches the stringent quota management system, and involves misreporting the catches.
At today’s sentencing, Judge Saunders asked whether the fines totalling $424,500 that he imposed on four officers of the Oyang 75 at their sentencing in September 2012 had been paid.
Mr Lange told the court he was “unaware that the fines had been paid”.
Judge Saunders then noted that Jo had taken steps to be represented at the hearings, and Mark Dollimore appeared for him at today’s sentencing.
The judge said: “He has taken some steps, unlike the others who chose not to be represented and to date would not appear to have met any of the financial penalties fixed by the court.”
Mr Dollimore said that Jo had been number three in the strict, almost military-style hierarchy, on the Korean vessel and suggested that he should face fines totalling $90,000 – half of the fines imposed on the captain. The Crown urged that fines totalling $120,000 be imposed.
Judge Saunders set the total fines at $105,000.
Earlier this year, Judge Brian Callaghan found similar charges proved against the captain of the Oyang 77.
The Oyang 75, a 68m sterm trawler which was said to be worth up to US$8 million, was tied up at Lyttelton for a long time when the Indonesian crew walked off the vessel citing mistreatment, long hours, and pay issues.
In his decision after hearing evidence in the case, Judge Saunder commented that the five Korean officers had ruled the vessel “with an iron fist”.
According to the Ministry of Primary Industries which brought the prosecutions, both vessels are now fishing overseas.
In discussion in court on a further fisheries prosecution later in the day, Lange told Judge Saunders: “Realistically, I am not aware of any similar cases involving prosecutions of foreign crews, where the fines have been paid.”
2014 Fairfax New Zealand Limited