page_title: United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins
section_title: Litigation
hierarchical_section_title: United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins / Litigation
caption_attribution_description: English: Edward J. Schwartz United States Courthouse — serving a United States district court in San Diego, California.
context_page_description: United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins is a 2008 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concerning civil forfeiture in admiralty law. Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for a three-judge panel that ordered that the shark fins be returned to their owners, reversing a decision by the Southern District of California. The government did not appeal the case further.
  The case began in 2002 when a Coast Guard crew working from a Navy ship stopped and searched the King Diamond II, a U.S.-flagged, Hong Kong-based vessel in international waters off the coast of Guatemala. On board the ship they found shark fins, equivalent to 32.3 tons but without any corresponding shark carcasses. The Coast Guard, upon further investigation, found documentary evidence that the KD II had arranged to meet fishing vessels at predetermined locations and buy various quantities of fins. These activities were believed to violate the Shark Finning Prohibition Act of 2000. The fins were thus seized and the ship escorted to San Diego, the nearest American port.
  Federal agencies filed charges against the KD II's owner, operator and captain.
context_section_description: In early 2003 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Office for Law Enforcement finished its investigation and charged Tran and Yu; Tai Loong Hong Marine Products Ltd., of Hong Kong, for whom the fins had been bought; and Chien Tan Nguyen, captain of the KD II, with 26 counts of violating the SFPA. They were assessed fines of $620,000, the highest civil penalty ever levied for a violation of the act.
  Tai Loong believed that the government had exceeded its statutory authority by confiscating the fins. It argued that before Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz, a federal district judge for the Southern District of California, who granted an injunction against NOAA prohibiting it from selling the fins itself. The company and the agency then agreed that, in return for the former putting up a $775,000 bond, that it would take possession of the shark fins, although they remained in cold storage pending the outcome of the case. Tai Loong presold the fins for an amount almost equal to the fine against it. NOAA then initiated a civil forfeiture action with the bond substituting for the fins.
caption: The Edward J. Schwartz Federal Courthouse in San Diego, where the case was first heard
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