Day 285 - 23 Oct 96 - Page 27
1 slightly comment, that he had not checked their export
2 division, and that was on day 69, page 43, line 27. So he
3 cannot possibly, we would submit, give any evidence of any
4 relevance, or even admissible evidence, apart from what
5 someone had told him, of whether it was true or not.
6
7 On day 69, page 47, line 7 he said it was the suppliers'
8 responsibility in the USA to make sure the beef was one
9 hundred percent domestic. Again, relying on the
10 suppliers. I never managed to track down the Beavers,
11 because there was a whole section about the policing of
12 the supply chain pre-mid 1980s. We have heard, for
13 example, on the US labelling, one of the major raw
14 material suppliers to McDonald's -- in fact I think one of
15 the major patty suppliers -- had written to all its raw
16 material suppliers saying that there was a discrepancy in
17 the US libelling laws and seeking some guarantees.
18
19 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you have a reference for that?
20
21 MR. MORRIS: It will probably come up. So, do McDonald's
22 actually understand what their suppliers are doing, is the
23 next question I want to ask. Mr. Oakley testified on day
24 64, page 25, line 36, that suppliers would not have
25 imported beef in Brazil from rainforest areas to boning
26 halls in the south because it would be too expensive. We
27 might ask: how does he know anyway? But the point is,
28 the expert evidence from Suzanna Hecht and others is
29 precisely that beef is transferred to be fattened up in
30 the central plains, transferred from ex-tropical forest
31 and rainforest areas.
32
33 Actually, I have just remembered something; I remember
34 when we were questioning David Walker, I think, about the
35 Lord Vestey letter, that we questioned about this word in
36 the Lord Vestey letter, that no one would truck fat cattle
37 and we said, "Does that mean they would truck young
38 cattle?" and I think -- this is just purely from memory --
39 that he tried to ridicule our point of view, saying that,
40 you know, cattle would not be trucked. It is clear that
41 maybe Lord Vestey was, in fact, aware at that time that he
42 was skating on thin ice as far as giving McDonald's their
43 guarantees, and was wording it ambiguously and McDonald's
44 -----
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That did not come out of his evidence. You
47 called him, for better or worse. Or the point was made
48 that Miss Steel was calling him rather than you.
49
50 MR. MORRIS: Yes. I am talking more in terms of Walker. The
51 point being that Mr. Walker is a patty manufacturer who
52 relies on suppliers to give him accurate information.
53 What does he do with that accurate information, or
54 information? He interprets it the way that is suitable to
55 him, as he did so in the witness box. And this further
56 undermines McDonald's position that they monitor very
57 carefully, X, Y, Z.
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. At the moment I think there is a
60 conflict between certain witnesses on McDonald's side and
