Day 070 - 20 Dec 94 - Page 14


     
     1        relation to beef exported from Brazil, if there is any
     2        beyond the Vesty meat, which does not and never has come
     3        from rainforest land.
     4
     5   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  But why have any discovery about the
     6        80 tonnes then -- even that?
     7
     8   MR. RAMPTON:  I was not going to offer discovery about the
     9        80 tonnes unless ordered to do it.
    10
    11   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  That just came in because of these documents
    12        which the Defendants obtained?
    13
    14   MR. RAMPTON:  Your Lordship may remember that His Royal Highness
    15        the Duke of Edinburgh caused a rumpus in late 1982 or early
    16        1983 on the footing that some person (who later retracted)
    17        called Dr. Myers had said that McDonald's were helping to
    18        destroy the rainforests.
    19
    20   MR. MORRIS:  There has been no evidence that Dr. Myers
    21        retracted.
    22
    23   MR. RAMPTON:  There is plenty of evidence in the sense
    24        Mr. Morris understands "evidence".  There is a letter of
    25        retraction or a statement about retraction in the disclosed
    26        documents.
    27
    28        It so happened that Barlow Lyde & Gilbert had a file in the
    29        office containing those drafts by their partner (that your
    30        Lordship now has) attached to which was the Vesty letter.
    31        By an error -- which can happen in a busy form of
    32        solicitors -- the whole file was disclosed to the
    33        Defendants.  It is only by that route that the Defendants
    34        got to know what is, in fact, quite irrelevant to the
    35        issues of this case, that meat had been exported from
    36        Brazil to this country through the Vesty company.
    37
    38        The Vesty letter speaks for itself.  It says:  "This is not
    39        and never was rainforest beef.  The land from which it
    40        comes was deforested in the 1880s, the last forest in the
    41        1880s."
    42
    43        Because the Defendants had the letter, we thought it right
    44        to ask Mr. David Walker if he knew anything about it.
    45        Result of that was that he was able to verify what
    46        Lord Vesty says in his letter, because he had been there
    47        and he knows that the beef does not come from rainforest
    48        land.
    49
    50        I do not propose, unless your Lordship orders me to do so, 
    51        for example, to disclose shipment documents or contracts in 
    52        relation to those 80 tonnes.  They have absolutely no 
    53        relevance to this case whatsoever.
    54
    55   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No.  What is relevant in relation to the
    56        80 tonnes is, since there seems to be no real issue about
    57        the period of time when it took place, it seems to me there
    58        is absolutely no point in having shipment documents unless
    59        and to the extent that they show where the beef actually
    60        came from.

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