ONE of the world’s biggest fishing companies has filed for bankruptcy after a bitter fallout with its auditors over the accounts.

The collapse of Pescanova, based in the port of Vigo in Galicia, northern Spain, ranks among the largest insolvencies in Europe in recent years.

The company employs more than 10,000 workers who catch, process and sell fish in more than 20 countries.

In the early 1960s it pioneered the use of long-range freezer-trawlers to bring fish from the southern hemisphere. Today, it controls a fleet of more than 100 vessels, including factory ships.

Pescanova filed for protection from its creditors last week after talks with them broke down. It is the latest in a raft of Spanish companies to have failed during the country’s