Who owns the Kirkella?

I had not intended not to write further on the vexed subject of fish quota, mainly because I felt that the subject had been talked to death and that rather than engaging in arguments with hard line Brexiters it would be better just to wait for the alleged “benefits” to start kicking in. Quota isn’t mainly a West coast issue, but my interest had been fired up some years ago, following a conversation with a fellow who had been on one of the supertrawlers and told me, to my astonishment, that the ship had caught her entire year's share of quota in just three lucky weeks. He assured me that the ship spent the rest of the year out of action, something I found hard to believe. Surely, with an investment of millions, you would simply sail off to another corner of the World?

The piece that appeared on the BBC website the other day changed my mind, so here goes with my last contribution of 2021. The story starts:

“The owners of the UK's biggest trawler have described a new government deal to win back fishing rights following Brexit as "too little, too late".

Hull-based Kirkella has been mothballed since December 2020 after the UK lost the right to fish in Norwegian waters.

UK Fisheries said they were "absolutely devastated for the crew" as the new quotas offered just one week's work.

The government said the deal, announced earlier, struck a "strong balance" for the UK and Norwegian fleets.

The fishing access will see fleets from both countries be able to fish up to 30,000 tonnes of cod, haddock and hake in respective waters in the North Sea, the government stated.

Kirkella has been moored for a year at Hull Docks with the crew unable to work while post-Brexit negotiations have been ongoing.”

Comment: Those with reasonable memories will remember Liz Truss a year or so ago expressing her great joy that she had concluded a deal with Norway. I spent some time looking unsuccessfully online for the text, rather than mere puff. I then contacted Mike Russell, who informed me that the Scottish Government had not been involved and did not have a copy. The BBC piece confirms that one important point had not been agreed, the actual quantities that UK vessels would be allowed to catch in Norway’s (nonEU) waters! Before Brexit, of course, the UK was covered by what the EU, with the massive muscle of a giant trading bloc, had negotiated with Norway on our behalf.

The piece continues:

“The self-employed, 30-strong crew of the 81m (266ft) freezer trawler were paid per trip and have been ‘sold down the road’, according to first mate Charlie Waddy.

‘I feel for the men,’ he said. ‘Their lives have been fishing since they left school. All they wanted to do was come fishing. They loved the job.’

Mr Waddy said he felt the government had encouraged fishermen to back Brexit, but he was now worried for the future of the industry.”

Comment: That the crew are/were all self employed is utterly scandalous in the modern world. This means that they presumably have no entitlement whatever to any of the normal employee protections that our law, to date in line with the EU, provides, things like sick pay, redundancy and pensions. It’s a traditional model that worked fine in small fishing communities, but should have no place whatever in an industry that is otherwise very modern and industrialised.

The article then finishes:

“Jane Sandell from UK Fisheries, which claimed Kirkella supplied between 8-12% of all fish sold in UK fish and chip shops, said the latest deal had left the company ‘more than disappointed’.

She believed the new fishing deal offered just one week's work for the Hull-based crew.

‘We're absolutely devastated for the crew. The government was fully aware of what we need to operate a viable business and frankly these kind words were just platitudes.’

The government said the deal would see UK fishing vessels be allowed to fish more than 7,000 tonnes of cod in the arctic - an increase of 1,500 tonnes compared with 2021.

Fisheries Minister Victoria Prentis said the arrangements ensured a strong balance, that would benefit the fishing industry and ‘the protection of the marine environment’.”

I have in the past researched the ownership structures of some of the principal vessels involved in what is described as the UK fishing fleet. Frequently the results show only the most marginal connection. The Kirkella seems to be no exception, despite the message painted on her bow

The Kirkella is the property of her own dedicated limited company, Kirkella Limited, registered in England and Wales and based at the Orangery in West Yorkshire. The company is financed by a Dutch bank. The directors of the company are:

Diederik Parveliet (“ Mr P”), a Dutchman.

Jane Sandell (“Ms S”) an Englishwoman.

Balvin Thorsteinsson (“Mr T”) an Icelander.

Jan Cornelis Van Der Plas )”Mr VdP”) a Dutchman.

But who owns Kirkella Limited?

The sole shareholder is J Marr Fishing Limited, another English company. Its directors are Mr P, Ms S, Mr T and Mr VdP.

And who owns J Marr Fishing Limited?

The sole shareholder is UK Fisheries Limited, another English company. Its directors are, surprise, surprise, Mr P, Ms S, Mr T and Mr VdP.

So, who owns UK Fisheries Limited?

The shareholders are Onward Fishing Company Limited, 50% and

B V Tory, 50%

You can search until the fish come home, or Brexit delivers a bonus, before you will find anything more about B V Tory, although one suspects it may be a Dutch registered entity, because from now on Mr VdP drops out of the story.

Re Onward Fishing Company Limited, the directors are Mr T plus a new Icelander, Gustav Baldvinsson.

This company belongs entirely to Samherji HF, which looks suspiciously like an Icelandic registered entity. Again, finding which actual people are the ultimate beneficiaries is impossible.

To conclude on a not very happy note, Liz Truss and Victoria Prentis have been fighting the corner on behalf of a gigantic supertrawler that ultimately belongs to what appear to be Dutch and Icelandic entities, fishes UK quota and uses the services of a crew who, if they are British residents, are presumably currently being looked after by UK taxpayers while their services are not required.

Images from the BBC website.

"Sherpa" Frost reveals all - But doesn't!

Yesterday “Sherpa” Frost finally lifted the veil of secrecy that had prevented all those apart from a magic circle of the High and Mighty to see the draft legal texts for the implementation of Brexit. Those deliberately kept in ignorance had included not only the Scottish Government and our friends in Northern Ireland and Wales, but the actual EU member states themselves, whose diplomats the Johnson regime was not prepared to trust to keep a secret.

I’ve been following developments on fishing and trying to understand the issues, with no great confidence that I’ve got things right. Accordingly any informed and referenced comments are most welcome. For the full text on the “Fisheries Framework Agreement” click this link:

Draft Fisheries Framework Agreement

Regarding fisheries the aim has been to have an agreement in place by the end of June, i.e. just under six weeks from now. I’m rather shocked to be able to say that both sides could probably sign up to this paper tomorrow without compromising the interests of either in any material way whatsoever. The reason why is quite simple; what has been advanced isn’t in any meaningful way a draft legal agreement at all. Virtually everything likely to cause dissent has been left out.

In the first year at law school students are taught that an “agreement to agree” will never constitute a binding legal contract. The law reports are full of cases of “contracts” where wishful thinking, woolly phrases and “Heads of Agreement” have enabled people to duck out of points of contention. Scots lawyers and, I think, the Scottish public don’t trust things such as selling our house “subject to contract”. This document is very much like that.

One’s first impression on looking at the fisheries draft is that it’s so short. Out of the eleven pages offered three are blank, the empty schedules. We then turn to the “Disclaimer” page, which at once gives the game away.

“The UK proposes the following legal text to form the basis for discussions with the EU on a Fisheries Framework Agreement.” An agreement to agree? Let’s look further.

Page 2 starts with a header that again gives the game away, this isn’t a draft contract or a treaty, it’s a “DRAFT UK NEGOTIATING DOCUMENT” The rest of this page is pure narrative with no meat in it. There follow twelve “Articles” of which I suggest that no fewer than nine are entirely non-contentious, more or less “boilerplate” text that nobody will seriously take exception to. The remainder are Articles 1, 2 and 12. Within those the bones have a little meat on them but only a tiny amount of gristle.

Article 1 on Page 3, “Definitions”, does what it says, but curiously and no doubt deliberately does not define or even refer to quota, a word I failed to spot at any point in the document.

One definition is very important, in the context of quota and “getting back control”. The definition of a UK or an EU fishing vessel is simple: it’s one flying the flag and licensed by one or the other side. As we all know, you don’t need to show your passport to obtain a flag. Many, perhaps most, fishing vessels, certainly the big ones and the supertrawlers, are owned via companies, the shareholders of which are often other companies, often offshore. Many vessels are acquired with mortgages from UK institutions, including the Royal Bank of Scotland, which we the taxpayers own almost in its entirety.

Those vessels with their complex ownership structures fish on the basis of quota which will have been purchased on the market like any other item of property. This is because there are surely no longer any significant numbers of fishers who got an original grant of quota free and who are still in the trade. A share of quota can cost more than the actual boat and we can assume that owners will not happily see it trashed. Anyone who thinks they won’t still be seeing “foreigners” catching “our fish” after Brexit should stop reading now.

Article 2 provides that “fishing opportunities” will be kept under review and negotiated annually on the basis of the best science. The parties respective permitted “amounts” will be adjusted proportionately. As noted, the word “quota” does not appear and this would have been the place to insert some mechanism for avoiding disputes re quota issues.

Finally, Article 12 is the bombshell. Using a cunning system of double negatives a textual smokescreen has been created to conceal the dates on which anything material might happen. Paragraph one reads:

“Each Party shall notify the other Party in writing through diplomatic channels of the completion of its domestic requirements for entry into force of this Agreement. This Agreement shall enter into force on a date to be mutually agreed and specified in these notifications.”

Paragraphs 2 and 3 list respectively the parts that will come into force on that future date, in fact virtually everything of importance and the parts that take effect on 1 January 2021, basically policing, management and data sharing. Incidentally there seems to be a drafting mistake, because to be effective Paragraph 1, delaying things, should come into effect on the latter as otherwise it all happens now and “we’re all doomed”.

Paragraph 4 allows either party to terminate on two years’ notice, but along with all the material stuff this doesn’t come into effect now.

Paragraph 5 states that the “Agreement” supersedes all previous ones, but of course when read along with Paragraph 1 it simply doesn’t, in practical terms.

Overall the text looks like something worthy of Baldrick, that will enable our illustrious Prime Minister to claim another great victory over Johnnie Foreigner while leaving the mess for someone else to sort out later.