High Seas Catchers' Cooperative Agreement - Forum Star Inc., American Seafoods Co., Harvester Enterprises Inc., Muir Milach Inc., Tracy Anne Inc., Neahkahnie Fisheries Inc. and Sea Storm Inc. and Offshore Pollock Catchers Cooperative
MEMBERSHIP AGREEMENT
THIS MEMBERSHIP AGREEMENT is entered into as of December , 1998, by and
among FORUM STAR, INC., AMERICAN SEAFOODS COMPANY, HARVESTER ENTERPRISES, INC.,
MUIR MILACH, INC., TRACY ANNE, INC., NEAHKAHNIE FISHERIES, INC., AND SEA STORM,
INC., and any other Member admitted pursuant to this agreement (together, the
"Members") and Offshore Pollock Catchers Cooperative, a Washington nonprofit
corporation.
RECITALS
A. The 1998 American Fisheries Act, ("the Act"), provides that, after
an allocation of ten percent (10%) of the total allowable catch of Pollock in
the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area to the Western Alaska
community development quota program and certain bycatch reserves, forty percent
(40%) of the remaining quota is allocated to catcher/processors and catcher
vessels harvesting Pollock for processing by catcher/processors. Of this 40%, at
least eight and one half percent (8.5%) shall be available to the catcher
vessels listed in section 208(b) of the Act (the "Catcher Vessel Share").
B. The Members of the Cooperative own or charter all of the vessels
that qualify under section 208(b) of the Act.
C. The BS/AI Pollock Fishery has been traditionally managed on an "open
access" or "Olympic Competition" basis. Under this management regime, each
fishery participant has an incentive to harvest as much resource as possible as
quickly as possible, because when the common pool of the relevant sector's
Pollock Fishery quota is consumed, that sector is closed to all participants.
D. Because it promotes a "race for the fish," open access management
encourages wasteful fishing and processing practices (as participants have an
incentive to maximize harvest rather than optimize utilization of their catch),
and creates a strong disincentive to employ careful fishing practices that have
been demonstrated to reduce incidental catch of non-target species.
E. The Members believe that by reaching agreement regarding the amount
of the allocation to which each of them will be entitled, it will be possible to
maximize the value obtained from the fish and to reduce the incidental catch of
non-targeted species.
F. The Act requires that in the event that a catcher vessel cooperative
is formed by the Members of this Agreement, the Agreement must provide penalties
to prevent the Members from exceeding in 1999, the traditional levels harvested
by such vessels in all other fisheries in the exclusive economic zone of the
United States.
Now, therefore, the parties agree as follows:
1. Entitlement to Harvest.
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a. Allocations: To enable each of them to extract the maximum amount of
value from the fish that is available for harvest, and to provide each of them
with the opportunity to take bycatch avoidance measures without adversely
affecting their ability to remain competitive, each Member hereby agrees,
subject to the terms and conditions of this Membership Agreement, the Articles
of Incorporation and the Bylaws of the Cooperative, to harvest or arrange for
the harvest of not more than the percentage of BERING SEA and ALEUTIAN ISLANDS
Directed Pollock fishery as defined in Section 205(4) of the Act, listed on the
schedule attached hereto as Exhibit A and incorporated herein by reference (the
"Harvest Schedule").
b. Management Measures. Each Member's allocation of Pollock and other
groundfish species shall be subject to all management measures generally
applicable to the catcher/processor and catcher vessel Section 206(2) allocation
allocated under Section 1.a., above (including but not limited to seasonal
apportionments and area harvest restrictions) on a discreet, individual basis;
i.e., each Member shall be restricted to harvesting no greater percentage of
such Member's allocation in any season or area than the aggregate percentage of
the catcher/processor and catcher vessel Section 206(2) allocation permitted to
be harvested in such season or area. Each Member shall have the individual
authority to carry over from season to season a percentage of that Member's
seasonal apportionment for each species no greater than the carry-over
percentage generally applicable to the catcher/processor and catcher vessel
Section 206(2) allocation.
c. Acquisition or Transfer of Harvesting Allocation. Not withstanding
the provisions of Section 1.a and 1.b. above, and subject to limits imposed by
law, each Member shall have the right to transfer some or all of such Member's
Pollock and other groundfish allocation(s) to one or more other Members or
members of any catcher-processor Pollock cooperative, and shall have the right
to acquire Pollock and other groundfish and/or the rights to harvest Pollock and
groundfish from the catcher vessels, or catcher-processors or any of them, or an
assocation they may form , on any terms each Member may agree upon. Member doing
so shall notify the Cooperative and Sea State, Inc. or such other independent
quota monitoring service as the Cooperative may retain from time to time (the
"Monitoring Service") within seven (7) days, and in any case, prior to the
harvest of any portion of a transferred allocation. Upon providing such notice,
the relevant Members' Harvest Schedules and/or non-Pollock allocation
percentages shall be considered to be amended accordingly for the term of the
transfer agreement.
d. Limitation on Participation in Fisheries Other Than Pollock: Each
Member agrees to identify its traditional fisheries and its historical level of
participation in those fisheries The board shall then determine which vessels
and
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to what extent each Member may participate in each fishery so
that the traditional levels of harvest, as defined in Section
205(5) of the Act, by the Members in 1999 does not exceed the
traditional levels harvested by section 208(b) vessels in other
fisheries in the exclusive economic zone of the United States
The board shall then assign entitlement to participate in a
fishery based upon prior participation. Priority shall be based
on the extent of prior participation.
Upon the Board of Directors or two or more Members in good
standing concluding that a Member may have participated in a
fishery in which he was not entitled, Section 4.4 of the Bylaws
shall be implemented for a determination of whether there has
been an unauthorized participation, and if so, the penalty to be
assessed. To determine the proper penalty, the forum shall be
guided by the penalties assessed by judicial forums for illegal
participation in similar fisheries. All revenue resulting from
the assessment of penalties shall be used as determined by the
Board of Directors.
2. Harvest Entitlement Monitoring. To enable each Member and the
Cooperative to monitor other Members' compliance with Paragraph 1 above, each
Member hereby agrees that it shall require in each contract for sale of its
share of the harvest as provided for in paragraph 1 above, that the purchaser
shall provide to Sea State, Inc. or such other independent monitoring service as
the Cooperative may retain from time to time, (the "Monitoring Service"), all
data and forms, including private and governmental forms that reflect the
quantities of harvest entitlement purchased. Additionally, each Member shall
waive any confidentiality entitlement that it may have regarding data that any
U.S. or state governmental agency may have regarding its Pollock catch and
by-catch records and information regarding participation in other fisheries,
after the date of this agreement, and shall direct the U.S. and/or state
agencies to provide such information to the Monitoring Service. Each Member
agrees that absent manifest error, the data produced for the Cooperative by the
Monitoring Service shall be presumed accurate, and that, absent manifest error,
each Member's obligations under this agreement and all related documents may be
enforced to their fullest extent on the basis of such data.
3. Harvest Schedule Enforcement. Each Member acknowledges and agrees
that the benefits associated with the Member's mutual harvest agreement will
only accrue to the Members if each of them strictly complies with the Harvest
Schedule. Each Member acknowledges that all other Members will be taking certain
significant operational and financial actions based on this Agreement, and that
a breach of this Agreement by any Member would have significant adverse
consequences. Therefore, to facilitate enforcement of this Agreement, each
Member agrees to the procedures set forth in this Section 3.
a. Forfeiture Amount Calculation. Not less than twenty (20)
days before each Pollock Fishery opening, the Cooperative Board of
Directors shall establish a penalty amount per ton of Pollock (the
"Value").
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b. Bonding or Alternative Security. Not more than ten (10)
days following announcement of the Value by the Board of Directors,
each Member shall post with the Cooperative either:
(i) a bond (the "Harvest Bond") securing that
Member's performance under this Agreement, in an amount equal
to (i) the Value multiplied by (ii) fifty percent (50%) of the
tons of Pollock available to such Member in the following
calendar year based on such Member's Harvest Schedule
percentage,
or
(ii) an alternative security acceptable to the Board
of Directors (the "Alternative Security").
c. Over-harvest Forfeiture. Following the close of each
Pollock Fishery season, the Board of Directors shall review the
seasonal harvest data from the Monitoring Service and NMFS, and report
to the Members concerning the Members' compliance with the Harvest
Schedule. Upon the Members determining in accordance with the
organization's Bylaws that a Member has provided for the harvest of an
amount of Pollock from the Pollock Fishery in excess of that Member's
percentage of the quota, as determined with reference to NMFS seasonal
allocation (as the same may have been modified during the respective
season) and the Harvest Schedule, the Cooperative shall have the right
to collect from such Member an amount equal to the Value multiplied by
the number of metric tons by which such Member's harvest exceeded that
Member's allocation. This amount may be collected through any
reasonable process, including but not limited to forfeiture of the
Member's Harvest Bond or Alternative Security.
d. Voluntary Compliance. The Members and the Cooperative agree
that upon the Cooperative's Members determining that a Member has
over-harvested its Harvest Schedule percentage, the Cooperative shall
provide the over-harvesting Member with fifteen (15) days advance
notice of its intent to exercise its rights of collection against an
over-harvesting Member's Harvest Bond, during which period the Member
may request reconsideration of the enforcement action or may propose an
alternative method of compensating the remaining Members and the
Cooperative for the damages suffered as the result of such Member's
over-harvest. The remaining Members may grant or deny any request for
reconsideration and may approve or disapprove any alternative form of
compensation in their sole discretion.
e. Actual Damages and Enforcement Expenses. Each Member agrees
that in the case of an over-harvest that results in a forfeiture amount
in excess of the value of the Member's bond, the Cooperative shall be
entitled to actual damages in addition to the forfeited amount, which
shall be distributed in accordance with Section 3.g., below upon the
collection of the arbitrators' award. The prevailing party in an
enforcement action shall be entitled to an award of its reasonable
costs, fees and expenses, including attorneys and arbitrator fees,
incurred in the action by said party.
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f. Bond Enforcement. Each Member agrees to take all actions
and execute all documents necessary or convenient to give effect to the
Harvest Bond enforcement procedure contemplated under this Section 3.
g. Distribution of Bond Proceeds and Damages. All funds
forfeited or awarded to Members and or the Cooperative under this
provision shall be distributed pro rata among the Members whose harvest
share was less than their Harvest Schedule allocation, with each Member
receiving a fraction of such funds the numerator of which is the amount
by which such Member's Pollock Fishery catch was less than such
Member's Harvest Schedule allocation, and the denominator of which is
the sum of all Members' catch shortfalls.
4. Term and Termination. This Agreement shall take effect as of its
execution by all Members and may be terminated by any
Member upon the occurrence of one or more of the following:
a. on or after September 1, 2000, NMFS implements or enforces
a regulation that excludes a Member from participating in one of the
below listed fishery in which he has traditionally participated as a
result of that Member's participation in this Cooperative, and as a
result thereof, at least fifty percent of the Membership, in writing,
request the termination of this Agreement. The request must be filed
before September 15 of the year in which it is filed and the
termination shall be effective on December 31 of the year in which the
notice is filed.
1. Bering Sea Cod;
2. Alaska Scallops
3. Bristol Bay King Crab ; or
b. there is a determination by any government agency of
competent jurisdiction or the Cooperative that this Agreement violates
either State or Federal antitrust or unfair competition law, or
unreasonably exposes any Member or the Cooperative to civil antitrust
or unfair competition; or
c. a vessel other than those listed on Exhibit A is legally
authorized to harvest Pollock from the allocation to vessels under
Section 208 (b) of the Act unless the operator of such vessel has
agreed to be bound by the terms of this Agreement; or,
d. ownership or control of a vessel listed in Exhibit A is
transferred to a party that is not a Member and that party has not
agreed to be bound by the terms of this Agreement; or
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e. termination or modification of the inshore/offshore
allocation specified in Section 206 (b) of the Act; or
f. as of December 31st of any of the calendar years 2000 and
thereafter, at least 50% or more of Members delivering a notice of
termination to all other Members on or before September 1st of such
year, if such notice of termination is not rescinded by any of the
terminating Member(s) on or before September 15th of such year; or
Termination of this Agreement shall not relieve any Member of its
obligations to pay the damages set forth in Section 3 in connection with the
determination of over-harvest.
5. Public Interest Research and Publication. The Members acknowledge
that the primary purposes of the harvesting arrangement contemplated hereunder
are improving their utilization of resources harvested in the Pollock Fishery,
reducing the incidental catch of non-target species, promoting local employment
in the Pollock Fishery, and promoting the adoption and continued support of
resource utilization and conservation arrangements such as those contemplated
under this Agreement. The Members therefore agree to contribute to research and
publication concerning these issues. The amount shall be determined by the board
at the beginning of each year. All such research and publication is to be
conducted in the public's interest, and the results of all such research shall
be made available to the general public at no charge.
6. Bycatch. Each Member acknowledges and agrees that reducing
incidental catch of non-target species to the maximum reasonable extent is a
primary objective of the Members and the Cooperative. Each Member therefore
agrees to employ such reasonable bycatch avoidance techniques as the Board of
Directors and/the Monitoring Service and/or other Cooperative agents may
recommend from time to time.
7. Membership Agreement Enforcement. Each Member agrees that the Board
of Directors of the Cooperative may enforce this Membership Agreement on behalf
of the Cooperative and/or any of its Members. The procedure for doing so shall
be as provided ln the Cooperative's Bylaws.
8. Vessel Transfer Restrictions. Each Member acknowledges that the
other Members will make investments in equipment and vessel modifications
designed to improve their utilization of the Bering Sea resources in reliance on
this Agreement, and that a breach of this Agreement during its term by any of
them may cause the remaining Members to suffer substantial adverse economic
consequences. In addition, each Member acknowledges that one of the primary
purposes of this Agreement is to improve all Member's abilities to avoid certain
non-target species, and that failure to constrain such incidental catch could
result in premature closure of certain Bering Sea or Aleutian Islands fisheries,
at substantial cost to all Members.
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a. Each Member agrees that so long as this Agreement remains
in effect, no Member shall have the authority to sell, charter or
transfer operating authority over a Vessel to a party not bound by this
Agreement, regardless of whether such transfer is temporary or
permanent, and regardless of whether such transfer is effected as part
of a vessel sale or otherwise, unless the proposed transferee first
assumes all of the transferring Member's obligations under this
Agreement Each Member further agrees that should a Vessel that it owns,
charters or manages be transferred to a party not bound by this
Agreement, all BSAI groundfish harvested outside of this Agreement by
such Vessel shall be deducted from such Member's allocation(s) under
this Agreement. Any attempted or purported transfer of a Vessel other
than in compliance with this Section shall be void.
b. Each Member warrants that each Vessel under that Member's
ownership, control or management shall be operated in accordance with
this Agreement, regardless of whether such Vessel(s) remain under such
Member's ownership, control or management.
9. Remedies and Attorneys' Fees. In addition to any of the remedies
provided in this Agreement, each Member and the Cooperative shall have the right
to have any provision of this Agreement specifically enforced through
injunction, restraining order or any other form of equitable relief. In
connection with any legal proceeding related to this Agreement, the
non-prevailing party shall pay the prevailing party's reasonable costs and fees
associated with the proceeding. For purposes of this Agreement, "legal
proceedings" shall include arbitration, administrative, bankruptcy and judicial
proceedings, including appeals therefrom.
10. Miscellaneous.
a. This Agreement contains the entire understanding of the
parties as to the matters addressed herein, and supersedes all prior
agreements related to the same. No amendment to this Agreement shall be
effective against a party hereto unless in writing and duly executed by
such party.
b. This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in
accordance applicable federal law and the laws of the State of
Washington. Venue for any action related to this Agreement shall be in
King County, Washington.
c. This Agreement may be executed in counterparts which, when
taken together, shall have the same effect as a fully executed
original. Delivery of a signed copy of this Agreement by telefacsimile
shall have the same effect as delivering a signed original.
d. The parties agree to execute any documents necessary or
convenient to give effect to intents and purposes of this Agreement.
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e. All notices to be given hereunder shall be in writing and
shall be deemed given upon the earlier of when received or three days
after mailing addressed as follows:
MUIR MILACH, INC.
F/V MUIR MILACH
David Fraser
120 Lakeside, Suite 230
Seattle, WA 98122
TRACY ANNE, INC
F/V TRACY ANNE.
Charles Yates
120 Lakeside, Suite 230
Seattle, WA 98122
SEA STORM, INC.
F/V SEA STORM
Doug Christensen
400 North 34th, Suite 306
Seattle, WA 98103
FORUM STAR, INC.
F/V FORUM STAR
Jim Chase
PO Box 4280
Portsmouth N.H. 03802
NEAHKAHNIE FISHERIES, INC.
F/V NEAHKAHNIE
Frank Bohannon
56648 Lunar DR.
PO Box 3529
Sunriver, OR 97707
AMERICAN SEAFOODS, INC.
F/V AMERICAN CHALLENGER
Mike Hyde
American Seafoods, Inc.
2025 First Ave.
Seattle, WA 98121
HARVESTER ENTERPRISES
F/V OCEAN HARVESTER
Kaare Ness
20117 15th Ave.NW
Shoreline, WA 98177
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The Members may from time to time change their address for notice purposes by
written notice to the other Member.
f. This Agreement shall be binding on the successors and
assigns of all parties hereto.
g. This Agreement shall be construed as a whole according to
its fair meaning, without a presumption that it shall be more strictly construed
against the person who drafted it, as each party has participated in its
preparation with the assistance of counsel.
h. In the event that any provision of this Agreement is held
to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be deemed to be severed
from this Agreement, and such holding shall not affect in any respect whatsoever
the validity of the remainder of this Agreement.
Dated as of the date first set forth above.
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FORUM STAR, INC HARVESTER ENTERPRISES, INC.
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AMERICAN SEAFOODS COMPANY MUIR MILACH, INC.
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SEA STORM, INC. TRACY ANNE, INC.
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NEAHKAHNIE FISHERIES, INC. OFFSHORE POLLOCK CATCHER COOPERATIVE
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EXHIBIT A
HARVEST SCHEDULE
BERING SEA / ALEUTIAN ISLANDS POLLOCK FISHERY HARVEST SCHEDULE
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Members Percentage of Annual Bering Sea / Aleutian Islands
Directed Pollock Fishery as Defined in Section 205(4)
of the Act
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Forum Star, Inc. .2441%
F/V FORUM STAR, ON 925863
American Seafoods Company .3149%
F/V AMERICAN CHALLENGER, ON615085
Harvester Enterprises .4325%
F/V OCEAN HARVESTER, ON 549892
Muir Milach, Inc. .4538%
F/V MUIR MILACH, ON 611524
Tracy Anne, Inc. .4642%
F/V TRACY ANNE, ON 904859
Neahkahnie Fisheries, Inc. .6679%
F/V NEAHKAHNIE, 599534
Sea Storm, Inc. .8226%
F/V SEA STORM, ON 628959
TOTAL: 3.4%
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