Faroese Ministry of Fisheries agrees to compensation deal with NorthWest Pelagic after legal dispute

The case began in early 2016 when the Faroese fisheries authority, Vørn, refused to issue a fishing license to the pelagic vessel Atlantsfarid, which was being transferred from Midvåg to Kollafjørður and renamed Norðhavið. Vørn maintained that the Dutch company Jaczon was in control of NorthWest Pelagic, despite owning only one-third of it, citing limitations in Faroese fisheries legislation.

The Ministry of Fisheries upheld Vørn’s position, leading to a lengthy legal dispute. In 2019, the Faroese Court ruled that the Ministry did not have the authority to deny NorthWest Pelagic a fishing license. The court found that the Ministry failed to prove that the company in Kollafjørður was operated from the Netherlands.

Following this ruling, the Ministry’s decision was annulled, and it was instructed to grant both a fishing license and any other fishing permissions to which the company was entitled. The Ministry chose not to appeal the case in the High Court, thus allowing the lower court’s decision to stand. Subsequently, the parties have negotiated compensation.

Currently, the Ministry of Fisheries and Transport is prepared to pay the company 24 million kroner as compensation, which has been included in the financial proposal accompanying the budget. Jógvan Martin Ferjá Joensen, the director of NorthWest Pelagic (now known as P/F Jupiter), expressed that the company prefers to receive fishing quotas rather than monetary compensation.

The company has filed a lawsuit against the Ministry seeking 127 million kroner, arguing that it had no fishing quotas from 2016 to 2019 and was unable to purchase quotas during a public auction due to being classified as foreign. Those auction quotas were later converted into permanent quotas, increasing their value.