A UK campaign group has accused one of China’s biggest fishing companies of environmental and labour abuses, raising questions for major seafood distributors in Japan and Taiwan that have purchased its catches. The allegations from the Environmental Justice Foundation target Zhejiang Ocean Family, a company owned by billionaire Lu Weiding that the non-governmental organisation said controlled nearly 15 per cent of Chinese tuna production.

ZOF has supplied some of the world’s biggest international seafood distributors, including Taiwanese group FCF and Japanese trading house Mitsubishi.

In a report, the EJF alleged that most of the 12 ZOF-operated ships it had tracked had killed protected species, including dolphins, sharks and false killer whales. “Several species of sharks were caught and slaughtered at an industrial scale across the fleet,” said the report, which followed a four-year investigation.