Day 158 - 19 Jul 95 - Page 52
1
2 What we would do, if this plea were allowed, is, as I have
3 said, to visit it with the most searching request for
4 further and better particulars. If those particulars were
5 not given, not only we would not give the discovery which
6 the Defendants might be panting to have, but we would apply
7 to strike it out then on the basis that it had become clear
8 that it was a -----
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Give me an indication of what further and
11 better particulars you say you would be entitled to.
12
13 MR. RAMPTON: Let me take, if I may, the first two lines:
14 "Brazilian beef, some originated from cattle raised on
15 ex-rainforest land", blah-blah-blah-blah, "has been
16 supplied to McDonald's". The first question -- I started
17 to draft this last night but did not finish it -- State (a)
18 the quantities of Brazilian beef supplied to McDonald's
19 which originated from cattle on ex-rainforest land; give
20 the approximate dates of all such supplies; identify the
21 precise areas or regions of Brazil in which the cattle
22 concerned were raised; give the approximate date when each
23 of those areas or regions was last rain forest. I mean,
24 that is just the beginning.
25
26 Then, my Lord, one could drop one's eye a bit further down
27 that paragraph: "Plant supplying", and it now becomes
28 McDonald's beef, I think it is, "have included those based
29 at Barretos exported to the UK". Of "have included" state
30 which other plants have supplied McDonald's, in what
31 quantities, when and from where.
32
33 Then it goes on and, of course, here we have the conflation
34 between Vesty and what I might call the resident operation
35 in Brazil, and in Mato Grosso and Goias -- no, that is not
36 the conflation because this is all Vesty -- regions
37 bordering areas of ex-rain forest land. Again the same
38 questions. Those are huge areas. The Defendants do not
39 seem to understand what a gigantic country Brazil is, Mato
40 Grosso and Goias. Which parts of Mato Grosso and Goias?
41 How close are they to the ex-rainforest land? When did
42 that land become ex-rain forest land? By what means did it
43 become ex-rainforest land, and so on and so forth.
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am not sure I grant you these, you see, on
46 the basis that if the amendment is justified at all, it is
47 because it is put on a general basis with the knock-on
48 effect.
49
50 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, but, my Lord -----
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52 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is quite clear from the way Mr. Morris has
53 put it that he cannot begin to give those particulars, that
54 all he can say is there is some evidence that McDonald's
55 have been taking beef from areas which -- let us suppose
56 I am against him on the Amazon boundary point ---
57
58 MR. RAMPTON: Oh, yes.
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- the Amazon frontier, it is called, let us
