Day 285 - 23 Oct 96 - Page 27


     
     1        slightly comment, that he had not checked their export
     2        division, and that was on day 69, page 43, line 27.  So he
     3        cannot possibly, we would submit, give any evidence of any
     4        relevance, or even admissible evidence, apart from what
     5        someone had told him, of whether it was true or not.
     6
     7        On day 69, page 47, line 7 he said it was the suppliers'
     8        responsibility in the USA to make sure the beef was one
     9        hundred percent domestic.  Again, relying on the
    10        suppliers.  I never managed to track down the Beavers,
    11        because there was a whole section about the policing of
    12        the supply chain pre-mid 1980s.  We have heard, for
    13        example, on the US labelling, one of the major raw
    14        material suppliers to McDonald's -- in fact I think one of
    15        the major patty suppliers -- had written to all its raw
    16        material suppliers saying that there was a discrepancy in
    17        the US libelling laws and seeking some guarantees.
    18
    19   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Do you have a reference for that?
    20
    21   MR. MORRIS:   It will probably come up.  So, do McDonald's
    22        actually understand what their suppliers are doing, is the
    23        next question I want to ask.  Mr. Oakley testified on day
    24        64, page 25, line 36, that suppliers would not have
    25        imported beef in Brazil from rainforest areas to boning
    26        halls in the south because it would be too expensive.  We
    27        might ask:  how does he know anyway?  But the point is,
    28        the expert evidence from Suzanna Hecht and others is
    29        precisely that beef is transferred to be fattened up in
    30        the central plains, transferred from ex-tropical forest
    31        and rainforest areas.
    32
    33        Actually, I have just remembered something; I remember
    34        when we were questioning David Walker, I think, about the
    35        Lord Vestey letter, that we questioned about this word in
    36        the Lord Vestey letter, that no one would truck fat cattle
    37        and we said, "Does that mean they would truck young
    38        cattle?" and I think -- this is just purely from memory --
    39        that he tried to ridicule our point of view, saying that,
    40        you know, cattle would not be trucked.  It is clear that
    41        maybe Lord Vestey was, in fact, aware at that time that he
    42        was skating on thin ice as far as giving McDonald's their
    43        guarantees, and was wording it ambiguously and McDonald's
    44        -----
    45
    46   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   That did not come out of his evidence.  You
    47        called him, for better or worse.  Or the point was made
    48        that Miss Steel was calling him rather than you.
    49
    50   MR. MORRIS:   Yes.  I am talking more in terms of Walker.  The
    51        point being that Mr. Walker is a patty manufacturer who
    52        relies on suppliers to give him accurate information. 
    53        What does he do with that accurate information, or
    54        information?  He interprets it the way that is suitable to
    55        him, as he did so in the witness box.  And this further
    56        undermines McDonald's position that they monitor very
    57        carefully, X, Y, Z.
    58
    59   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.  At the moment I think there is a
    60        conflict between certain witnesses on McDonald's side and

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