Day 270 - 28 Jun 96 - Page 57
1 made the statement from Burger King, whether they have
2 personal knowledge of what is said there, or whether it is
3 hearsay.
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What is the name of the person concerned?
6
7 MR. ATKINSON: It does not, as far as I can see --
8
9 MR. MORRIS: If I can explain.
10
11 MR. ATKINSON: It simply says it is from Burger King Customer
12 Relations. I cannot see a name of a person within that
13 department.
14
15 MR. MORRIS: What happened was that I have served this as a
16 Civil Evidence Act notice statement. I did explain at the
17 time, it was probably about six months ago I did this, and
18 I explained at the time what happened was that I wrote to
19 Burger King just to confirm that they had no stores in
20 Costa Rica. In any event, as we have heard, I think, from
21 a couple of those witnesses themselves, that there were no
22 stores in Costa Rica until 1990 or 1991. But just in case
23 there may be any shadow of a doubt left, that when Sergio
24 Quintana talked about supplying McDonald's and Burger King,
25 he was clearly referring about the USA. If you like, this
26 was the icing on the cake because McDonald's own witnesses
27 have conceded there were no Burger King stores in Costa
28 Rica until around 1990.
29
30 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What is the name of the person concerned?
31
32 MR. MORRIS: The point was I wrote a letter to Burger King
33 asking them to give the dates when their first store opened
34 in Costa Rica, and what I got back was a fax, which was
35 just my letter back with a typewritten thing saying first
36 store in Costa Rica opened on March 12th 1990, and that was
37 faxed me back from Burger King Corporation Latin America
38 Caribbean market. It has got the date 26th October 1995,
39 9.39 in the morning.
40
41 Basically I did say that was a bit bizarre, that I did not
42 get a handwritten or signed reply, but that actually came
43 from the Burger King Corporation back, which did not sound
44 very efficient on their part. But that was it. So I am
45 just going to make a notice that I wanted to rely on that
46 communication from Burger King. If I can pass that one up
47 (handed).
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What do you say about it, Mr. Atkinson?
50
51 MR. ATKINSON: It probably will not make any difference at the
52 end of the day, but the fact is that if one does not have
53 the name of the person who made it, it is not signed, for
54 example, I (a) do not know who has made it, and (b) what
55 that person's knowledge of the matter is.
56
57 MR. MORRIS: I am not that bothered either way to push it. I
58 tell you why: Because Peter Heller says it in his
59 statement, that there were no Burger Kings in Costa Rica
60 when he was filming. I believe Mr. Cesca also said the
