From 1980, as seen earlier, Galician fishermen began to enter the UK fishing market by taking advantage of easy fishing vessel registration requirements contained in the Merchant Shipping Act 1894. Although the 1894 Act prohibited ownership of vessels by non-UK nationals, UK-domiciled companies were allowed registration as the owners. Amongst the early beneficiaries of the 1894 Act was Factortame Limited, a company whose directors were Joseph J L Couceiro, John A Couceiro and Ken L Couceiro, all British nationals with Spanish ancestry resident and domiciled in the United Kingdom. The company, together with 96 others whose directors and shareholders were mostly Spanish nationals, re-registered 53 vessels which had formerly flown the Spanish flag as British fishing vessels under the 1894 Act. They also acquired 42 existing British vessels with a view to using them in the fishing zone. Most of these vessels landed their catches in Spain, but as the fish were caught in UK waters, they counted against the UK fishing quota, a practice known as "quota hopping".