An anti-aquaculture campaign group has lodged a formal complaint with Scotland's Ethical Standards Commissioner, urging an investigation into claimed potential breaches of lobbying regulations by industry body Salmon Scotland.

The complaint has been lodged by Green Britain Foundation (GBF), founded by millionaire Dale Vince, who has also vowed to invest "substantial resources" into launching more covert investigations to expose environmental breaches in the salmon farming industry.

GBF said the complaint outlines nine incidents between October 2022 and November 2023 where Salmon Scotland allegedly failed to properly record lobbying activities in the official register. 

These incidents include unregistered meetings with members of Scottish parliament (MSPs), government officials, and regulatory bodies, as well as a reported confrontation between Salmon Scotland CEO Tavish Scott and an MSP.

"The public has a right to know which vested interests are whispering in our politicians' ears," said Vince in a press release issued by his energy company, Ecotricity.

"If Salmon Scotland's been playing fast and loose with lobbying laws, what else are they hiding? This reeks of an industry that thinks it's above the rules -- whether that's environmental regulations or democratic transparency. It's time to drag their murky dealings into the light."

Yahoo News noted that as a former MSP himself,  Scott is entitled to hold a parliamentary access pass, and that there is no evidence Scott has broken rules using the pass. He has denied the allegations.

He said: "Dale Vince has a vegan food business and campaigns to ban all types of animal farming so that he can make even more money, making him a hypocrite of the worst kind. We will not be intimated by rich millionaires who choose to waste public resources on vexatious complaints and want 12,000 people who depend on fish farming to lose their jobs."

A Salmon Scotland spokesperson added: "None of these meetings involved registered lobbying and several meetings did not even involve any individual where lobbying register rules would apply. Salmon Scotland complies with the lobbying register, and there are at present 166 returns publicly available."