Day 083 - 06 Feb 95 - Page 53


     
     1   MR. RAMPTON:  I wonder if it is.
     2
     3   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It is not an area which you your clients are,
     4        apparently, sensitive about as they were in relation to
     5        abattoirs in this country because they have, in effect,
     6        given a long list in relation to 1989.
     7
     8   MR. RAMPTON:  And a fairly long list in relation to 1983.
     9
    10   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.  What is the reference to the 1983
    11        list?
    12
    13   MR. RAMPTON:  Tab 52 volume 14.  There is probably also a
    14        reference to the pink volume but there is no need to bother
    15        with that.  It is a shorter list because they are the main
    16        suppliers.  They are not the suppliers of suppliers.
    17
    18   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  There we are.  That may be my conclusion at
    19        the end of the day.
    20
    21   MR. MORRIS:  If they are McDonald's US suppliers, it does
    22        include Coope Montecillos on the list.  We did make that
    23        point before.
    24
    25   MR. RAMPTON:  No.  I have not really heard anything quite
    26        so ----
    27
    28   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Leave that aside.
    29
    30   MR. RAMPTON:  --- bizarre in the course of this whole case.
    31        Mr. Morris must read, I would advise him to read before the
    32        end of the case at least, the contents of file 14 when he
    33        will realise that there is what I might say a wide range of
    34        different kinds of documents within the volume.  Some are
    35        addressed to people in Coope Montecillos for an assurance
    36        that the people in Costa Rica do not use beef taken from
    37        the rainforest areas for Costa Rican purposes; some are
    38        letters to people in Canada.  There is within that list in
    39        tab 52 of volume 14 a list, whether it is exhaustive I have
    40        said I do not know -- I see there is a letter to somebody
    41        in Brazil as well and Mr. Morris will base an allegation of
    42        import from Brazil on that I have no doubt -- a list of the
    43        First Plaintiffs' main United States suppliers is
    44        incorporated into that list for that date.  Some of them,
    45        maybe most of them, are the same.
    46
    47   MR. MORRIS:  There are only six US suppliers.
    48
    49   MR. RAMPTON:  I said "named suppliers".  Some of them, indeed it
    50        may be all of them, I have not done a head count, are 
    51        exactly the same as they were in 1989.  My Lord, I am not 
    52        concerned on the same grounds as I would be in this 
    53        country, particularly having regard to what is going on at
    54        the moment, on grounds of security to protect the identity
    55        of McDonald's suppliers in the United States in 1979.  What
    56        I am concerned about is that some employee of McDonald's
    57        should not have to spend a week searching for information
    58        which is, for all practical purposes, available there in
    59        the disclosed documents.
    60

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