The problem of foreign or added water is not really specifie of scallop muscles. Nevertheless, the astonishing ability of scallop muscle to soak up water makes the problem keen. Heavy water additions that bring about excessive loss of water when thawing scallops are clearly a falsification. Frequent abuses have been established in France in the 1980-1986 years, much so that the product might depreciate in the eyes of the consumers. Consequently French importers and administrations decided to elaborate a standard in order to eliminate excessively soaked scallops and to preserve the brand image of the product. Three points are defined in this standard : . a sampling plan (codex plan NQA 6,5 S3) . the water/protein ratio on deglazed scallop muscles as analytical method. . a limit value set at 5,0 as critericn of conformity. After short spots about trade and regulation, we shall examine the methodology used in France to check the conformity of scallop muscles and the datas collected in Ifremer laboratories. We shall try to answer two questions : - Are H/P values weIl correlated with added water ? - Is 5 a fair limit-value of H/P ?