Day 262 - 13 Jun 96 - Page 40


     
     1        because I am sure the Defendants may want to get it down.
     2        The four questions are: how far each of the Defendants (and
     3        they must be considered separately) participated in the
     4        overall activities of the group during the relevant period,
     5        what was the nature of that participation; in other words,
     6        are we right to assert that they were core or leading or
     7        principal, or whatever the word is, members of the group?
     8        That does bear on the agency question, and that has been a
     9        question in the case for a very long time now.
    10
    11        Second question: what were the instructions which the
    12        Plaintiffs expressly or impliedly gave to the agents?
    13
    14        Third question: in relation to the anti-McDonald's
    15        campaign, what (if any) responsibility did the agents, when
    16        they were in the group, have for the continuation of that
    17        campaign?
    18
    19        Fourth question: was anything that the agents did when they
    20        were there susceptible of interpretation as acquiescence or
    21        consent on the part of the Plaintiffs in the further
    22        distribution of the words complained of?
    23
    24        My Lord, we have taken the view (rightly or wrongly) that,
    25        those being the four questions which bear upon today's
    26        argument that are relevant, material in the agents'
    27        notes -- whether the notes of a particular occasion have
    28        been disclosed in part or whether there were other
    29        occasions which have not been disclosed at all -- material
    30        in the agents' notes which does not bear in any way upon
    31        any of those four questions is irrelevant.
    32
    33        I note in passing I am not suggesting that your Lordship
    34        is, as it were, set in concrete over this.  I do not like
    35        submissions of that kind, and I do not now make it.  But
    36        I do note in passing, with some sense of reassurance, that
    37        when the Defendants asked for interrogatories about other
    38        occasions, your Lordship took the view -- and it was on the
    39        hoof and it was a very quick argument, and just as quick a
    40        ruling -- that the occasions which mattered were those at
    41        which some discussion of McDonald's had taken place; and,
    42        I would add, also those occasions which were attended by
    43        one or other or both of the Defendants.
    44
    45        That extends, of course, not just to public or business
    46        meetings of London Greenpeace, but also to any kind of
    47        London Greenpeace event having either or both of those two
    48        features:  anti-McDonald's and/or the attendance of one or
    49        other or both of the Defendants.
    50 
    51        It was with that consideration in mind, although we reached 
    52        the conclusion on our own accord before your Lordship did, 
    53        that we made the selection from amongst the notes of which
    54        occasions were relevant; and, having done that, we went on
    55        to blank out those parts of the notes which we did disclose
    56        on the ground of irrelevance, not on the ground of
    57        privilege, because once we had made a decision to disclose
    58        the notes, the privilege argument is dead save in so far as
    59        the bit we blanked out is, as it was put in the
    60        Great Atlantic case in the Court of Appeal, a separable or

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