Day 149 - 06 Jul 95 - Page 30
1 McDonald's documents a pretty comprehensive list, for
2 example, for 1983/1984, simply because at the time of the
3 World Wildlife Fund affair the suppliers were written to.
4 So we have the names for that period, but that is an
5 historical accident.
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But that is material which is already
8 available?
9
10 MR. RAMPTON: Yes. It is all in one of the Civil Evidence Act
11 witness bundles.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, I remember that.
14
15 MR. RAMPTON: It is all there. There are other sources as well,
16 where an intelligent person with a bit of effort can make
17 quite a good list for different periods of McDonald's
18 history.
19
20 MS. STEEL: Just to cut the thing short, if the Plaintiffs know
21 where it is, then if they could just say so, then obviously
22 that would be very helpful.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Without looking back at it, 83/84 you have,
25 because after the World Wildlife Fund bother (I will call
26 it), letters were written to all the suppliers, and we have
27 a list of those letters.
28
29 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, we have. We have the responses -- that
30 bit of it is all in the volume yellow XIV.
31
32 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. What you are saying is you have those,
33 because there was the fuss that no other records had been
34 kept because there was no reason to do it once that
35 appeared to have blown over; and you have the most recent
36 ones, because they have not yet been destroyed.
37
38 MR. RAMPTON: We have asked for a list, which they have done,
39 because they know who their current suppliers are.
40
41 My Lord, this is not the only source. There are other
42 sources. Off the top of my head, I cannot remember
43 precisely where to find them. There are, for example, a
44 whole lot of certificates from, I think, a later year, to
45 the effect that beef is UK domestic only, signed by
46 suppliers. That is volume XV.
47
48 If one bothers, one can trace through the identities. One
49 can, in fact, see that this document is really all the same
50 people. I do not propose to do that exercise now, if
51 your Lordship will forgive me.
52
53 The relevance of this is supposed to be, I think, whether
54 or not the Company in the United States ever imports any
55 beef from rainforest areas of other countries. So it is --
56 if I might put it bluntly -- pretty damn remote.
57
58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: As I understand it, it was that a potential
59 witness for the Defendants in the United States would be
60 able to cast his eye over the list and have some idea of
