A court delivered a painful nip to European Union fishermen on Thursday by tightening Norway's grip on snow crab catches in the Arctic, a ruling that may also let Oslo claw more control of oil and gas from other nations.
Fishermen from the European Union must ask permission from Oslo to catch snow crab — whose meat is a delicacy for gourmets from Canada to Japan — in Arctic waters north of Norway, the Norwegian Supreme Court said in a unanimous ruling.
The court dismissed an appeal by a Latvian fishing firm and its Russian captain against fines imposed by a lower court for catching snow crab around the remote Svalbard Islands in 2017 with only an EU license.