Up to now Nova Austral fires CEO and ASC suspends license

Nova Austral Fires CEO and ASC Suspends Logo License Agreement

Yesterday the board of Nova Austral admitted that it has identified occasions of misreported mortalities to Sernapesca over the last production cycleand has fired its CEO Nicos Nicolaides.

Today, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) has suspended Nova Austral’s Logo Licence Agreement after salmon mortality data manipulation scandal. The decision applies to all Nova Austral products and not only to those originated in the centers where the anomalies were detected.

The organization explained that it was aware of the decision by SERNAPESCA to commence legal proceedings due to the irregularities discovered in their initial investigation of the Chilean salmon company and the admission by Nova Austral of identified ‘occasions of misreported mortalities,’ as a result of its own internal investigation.

And said that in consideration of the seriousness of these proceedings and admissions and to protect the reputation of the ASC, ASC has terminated Nova Austral’s Logo Licence Agreement (LLA) while waiting for the outcome of further investigations by ASC’s third-party certifier. This is consistent with previous actions taken by ASC regarding similar instances of deceptive practices; which are not tolerated.

Upon notification of the termination of the LLA, Nova Austral must:

• Immediately cease the use of the ASC logo and all ASC trademarks for any purpose
• Halt all sales of products that show ASC trademarks.  This includes any product with an ASC chain of custody (CoC) number
• All products not yet identified as ASC certified can only be sold as non-certified product
• Within 24 hours, provide ASCI with a complete inventory of all labelled product, including product that has been marked with CoC numbers
• Inform all clients of the termination of their LLA

This decision is valid for all products with the above labelling status, from all Nova Austral farms, not only those originating from Aracena 3 and 19.

The investigation by third party independent conformity assessment body (CAB) Control Union Peru remains ongoing and may result in further action regarding the certified sites of Nova Austral.

ASC will contact relevant parties including SERNAPESCA as part of an initiative to develop a risk-based and collaborative approach to determine whether there are broader compliance issues within the Chilean salmon industry.

Related article:

-SERNAPESCA will file three complaints against salmon company Nova Austral

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