Day 024 - 15 Sep 94 - Page 61
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
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4 MS. STEEL: So it may be a bit of moving from one topic to
5 another.
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7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do not worry about that. You take your own
8 course. These are ones which he has not covered?
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10 MS. STEEL: That is right. I do not know whether I
11 should give the transcript references for Mr. Horwitz's
12 evidence?
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14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I would not have thought that you need refer
15 Mr. Gardner to the actual transcript itself. You can put,
16 if you wish, Mr. Horwitz alleged that, and then ask what
17 his answer to that is. If you care to give me the
18 transcript reference, just say 18th and 19th July, I think
19 they were, 18th July, page 24, or something, then I will
20 note it in my notebook so I can find it later.
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22 MS. STEEL: It is 18th July. It starts on page 50 and then
23 goes on to page 51. Mr. Horwitz was saying that, in his
24 experience, his opinion of Mr. Gardner was that he lacked
25 objectivity and impartiality that you would normally find
26 in most professional law offices. We did actually go into
27 that part this morning when Mr. Gardner said about
28 McDonald's not being the only company they had taken
29 action against, but Mr. Horwitz went on to say that he
30 based that on was that one of the things was that he
31 always used the threat of publicity as the real basis for
32 trying to force some sort of settlement on McDonald's;
33 that that threat of publicity was always first and
34 foremost, and even on occasions when he indicated he would
35 not be going to the press, the press was notified and
36 statements were given to them which required a response by
37 McDonald's. Is there something you want to say in
38 response to that?
39 A. Yes. It is untrue and without any basis. In fact,
40 I assume it served Mr. Horwitz well to make such
41 allegation.
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43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you keep your voice?
44 A. I am sorry, I am trying to be somewhat polite about my
45 response to Mr. Horwitz on that particular point. There
46 is a difference between differing on the law and differing
47 on my word, and that is what Mr. Horwitz has challenged.
48 Two points: As a general rule I would not make any
49 promise whatsoever with respect to press, because if press
50 contacted me, we were a public office and the press had a
51 right of access to our office and had a right to know what
52 we were doing if it was a public matter, equal to any
53 consumer, any competitor or to the company itself. We
54 were an equal access office for matters of contact with
55 whatever member of the public. Therefore, it was very
56 rare that I would make any commitment whatsoever what we
57 would do with respect to press contacts, whether the
58 Attorney General chose to initiate them or whether I was
59 called by a reporter.
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