Hampiðjan wholeheartedly condemns the Russian aggression in Ukraine and its ongoing action in the invasion of a democratic sovereign state. Hampiðjan has systematically withdrawn from doing business with Russian fishing companies, has already ended the majority of such activities, exports no products to Russia, and is in this way contributing to efforts to influence the policies of the Russian authorities.
Hampiðjan has for decades provided services for Russia customers and to support this activity had established a small sales operation in Kaliningrad under the Hampiðjan Russia name. This company has two staff in Kaliningrad and one in Murmansk, and they have been responsible for negotiating contracts with Russian fishing companies, although transactions have been carried out directly between subsidiary company Hampiðjan Ísland and entities in Russia. The arrangement has been such that the costs of running the Kaliningrad office have been paid from Iceland and this has been the only revenue of the Russian sales operation.
Payments to Hampiðjan Russia stopped in February and its activities have been suspended. No contracts have been signed in recent months and no business has taken place. No Russian trawlers have called in Iceland, while in previous years around fifteen vessels have called for services before heading for fishing grounds south-west of Iceland.
All references to Russia have been removed from Hampiðjan’s web site and the company’s Russian web site has been closed.
Hampiðjan has subsidiary companies in fifteen countries, including the Faroe Islands, Norway, Denmark and Spain. Sales from Denmark to Russian customers have been ended, although the subsidiary companies in the Faroe Islands, Norway and Spain have the flexibility to follow the guidelines put in place by the authorities in each country, and services to Russian fishing vessels in Faroese, Norwegian and Spanish ports have been exempted from sanctions. The Norwegian authorities in particular have stated that this is important, as Russia and Norway share a border and therefore also share Barents Sea fish stocks.
Sales to Russian fishing companies last year accounted for 4.37% of the overall turnover of the Hampiðjan Group. This was an unusually high figure, as a significant amount of business had been delayed due to the pandemic, and came therefore under the figures for 2021 and not 2020. The expectation had not been that sales for this year would equal the 2021 figures. Much of this business tends to take place in the early part of each year, and therefore significant sales had already been made prior to the invasion. As a result, the effects of this withdrawal will not be fully reflected in this year’s figures.