Deputy EMEA editor Dan Gibson brings you a roundup of the main stories from the previous week.  

Last week's top story was the bombshell news that Danish shipping and logistics giant Maersk intends to halt its trans-Pacific freight service from Alaska's largest seafood ports by volume in February 2025, slap-bang in the middle of the pollock 'A' season.

Public officials and fish processing executives in the affected ports of Dutch Harbor and Kodiak said the move "came out of the blue," and leaves companies such as Nissui's UniSea, Maruha Nichiro's Westward Seafoods and Trident Seafoods' Akutan plant scrambling to find new carriers.

On the Atlantic shores of North America, snow crab harvesters in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador finally reached a settlement with regional processors to set prices for 2024 at CAD 3.75 ($2.60)/lb, which should mean a bonus for some harvesters right before Christmas.

In another piece of shellfish news from Canada's Eastern seaboard, the country's Department of Fisheries and Oceans slashed next year's scallop quota by 39%. On the back of similarly severe cuts to quotas in the US and Japan, it means 2025's global scallop supply is going to be exceptionally thin on the ground.

Next, the Venezuelan government takeover of Lamar Group is sending ripples through the European shrimp sector, with importers and processors from France and the Netherlands particularly impacted, as Venezuelan product accounts for a large percentage of their total supply. Lamar's owners, the Rincon family -- who were accused of plotting a coup by the Maduro regime -- have meanwhile fled to Spain, while a government official has been placed in charge of the company.

There were also a couple of major US M&A stories to round out the week. In the first, announced Dec. 18, Trident confirmed it had completed the sale of three Alaskan processing plants in Kodiak to Oregon-based Pacific Seafood Group as part of its restructuring plans.

Then, the following day, California's Tsar Nicoulai Caviar was confirmed to have completed the acquisition of Sterling Caviar, one of the US' first and largest sturgeon farmers. Sterling had been suffering from financial struggles and entered receivership in April this year, with debts exceeding $23 million at the time.

For the rest of last week's biggest stories, click the headline below:

• Week 51 farm-gate shrimp roundup: Vietnam extends gains as Asian prices diverge
• Newfoundland salmon farmers criticized for abandoning plastic gear in ocean
• US leans heavy on Japanese, Peruvian scallops to hit two-year import high, fill domestic void
• Hokkaido spat shortage threatens Japan’s scallop future, global supply chain
• Indonesia’s eFishery suspends CEO, exec over financial investigation
• What's next for genetically engineered salmon as AquaBounty exits farming
• Four Ecuadorian shrimp farmers plan to put all raw material through new plant, target $350m turnover for 2025
• Former American Seafoods investor Coastal Villages involved in Gustafsson’s bid for pollock giant