Day 158 - 19 Jul 95 - Page 54


     
     1
     2        How many peasants have been driven, for example, from Bauru
     3        or Uberlandia nearly 1,000 miles to the southern-most tip
     4        of the rain forest by cattle ranchers in McDonald's time
     5        and as a consequence of McDonald's activities?  What if
     6        (and there is no evidence) Campo Grande or Goiania was on
     7        land that had been rain forest 25 years ago?  What if it
     8        was?  How can that be attributed to McDonald's who did not
     9        start in Brazil until 1979?
    10
    11        I would love to see Mr. Monbiot and Mr. Shane and whoever
    12        else it may be come to court in one sense because I am sure
    13        they are very interesting people.  But, my Lord, this is a
    14        serious case; it is costing an awful lot of money and it is
    15        taking a terrible long time.  One really ought not to have
    16        go down these funny little byroads unless one has
    17        absolutely got to.
    18
    19   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You have spoken about the expense of
    20        discovery and the expense of discovery in relation to any
    21        value which there might be, but what is the extent of
    22        discovery?
    23
    24   MR. RAMPTON:  It depends how one looks at it.  If we had the
    25        argument which the Defendants would, no doubt, insist that
    26        we should have about power over the documents belonging to
    27        subsidiaries or suppliers -- and here we probably have
    28        both; we have a supplier in Sao Paulo who, so far as
    29        I know, is an independent company, and then, no doubt,
    30        there is a Brazilian subsidiary -- if we had that argument
    31        and the Plaintiffs lost it, not that they would expect to
    32        lose it, but if they did, then we would have to send a team
    33        of people out to Brazil to see what there was.
    34
    35   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  But why?  If the case as it can be put
    36        forward can only be based upon the fact that McDonald's,
    37        whether in the UK or in Brazil, is using beef which comes
    38        from either the four red circled areas or not more than
    39        1,000 kilometres from Barretos, and that that has a
    40        knock-on effect so far as rain forest is concerned, what
    41        more discovery are the Defendants entitled to?
    42
    43   MR. RAMPTON:  They would not -- well, I hope not.  Put like
    44        that, and if your Lordship sees it like that, then, quite
    45        frankly -----
    46
    47   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I mean, what I am contemplating is then let
    48        them call Mr. Monbiot, let them call Mr. Shane, and see if
    49        I am persuaded at the end of the day that it has a knock on
    50        effect which has anything to do with the rain forest, but 
    51        there is certainly no claim or, you would say, sustainable 
    52        claim that beef comes from anywhere else but those places. 
    53
    54   MR. RAMPTON:  No, there is not, no.  I said, using the present
    55        tense, the only sustainable claim is that they come from
    56        the four orange places.  There is no sustainable claim that
    57        it came more than once from the broad yellow places because
    58        those are the Vesty places.  So one really ought to put
    59        that on one side in its entirety since it would, in our
    60        submission, be really very, very difficult, even for

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