Statement regarding lawsuit filed in the US District of Florida involving Norwegian salmon companies
The Norwegian Seafood Council, owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries, works with the Norwegian fisheries and aquaculture industries to develop markets for Norwegian seafood. We comply with competition and antitrust law and do not facilitate or countenance anticompetitive communications or data exchanges.
One of the key roles of the Norwegian Seafood Council is to collect information about the seafood markets and report this to the Norwegian seafood industry. Because any shipment of seafood internationally is reported to customs authorities using a standard international Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System code (HS code), a major source for these data is international trade statistics. The data reported are historical data of value and quantity aggregated by receiving country. The NSC uses SAS software to structure, store and retrieve the historical aggregated data and then makes that data available to Norwegian industry members. Our key supplier of trade statistics is Statistics Norway (SSB), the national statistical institute of Norway and the main producer of official statistics in Norway.
One of the services the NSC provides to the Norwegian seafood industry is to mirror individual exporter’s data back to them through the SAS trade statistic service. To access this information the exporter must enter into an agreement with Statistics Norway allowing Statistics Norway to release its data to the NSC for this purpose. The owner of the data must identify specific individuals within its organization that are permitted to access the company’s data. The NSC and SAS Institute (the vendor supplying the data system) have established strict security measures to ensure that the company-specific data are made available only to the designated individuals within that particular company and not to anyone else.
The historical information that the designated individuals receive under this service is a comparison of their own company’s trade data to an aggregated average of all shipments per HS code to the destination(s) in question.
Our data supplier, Statistics Norway, has strict measures in place assuring the data are kept anonymous.