Day 193 - 28 Nov 95 - Page 43
1
2 MR. RAMPTON: I do not believe there is a copy of the licence
3 agreement in this file either, as it happens.
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is the next point. In case it matters,
6 on page 1605 in tab 8 it sets out there what is said by
7 Ballantyne Foods to be the history, namely that Tingle
8 Foods Incorporated made a licence agreement with McDonald's
9 Restaurants of Canada in 1979; in December 1991 Cameron
10 Ballantyne acquired all the shares of that corporation,
11 changed the corporation's name to Ballantyne Foods Limited,
12 which is how it was trading at the time that the
13 unionisation drive started. Perhaps the detail does not
14 matter, but what I want to know is whether it is common
15 ground, because it has certainly been worked on that basis,
16 that Ballantyne Foods Limited was the licensee of
17 McDonald's. It may be in, I have forgotten his name now,
18 Mr. Ellis' statement.
19
20 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, it may be. I had not thought of that.
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It may be that you will be happy to say that
23 is common ground.
24
25 MR. MORRIS: He was a franchisee of McDonald's.
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
28
29 MR. MORRIS: I think so, yes.
30
31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The trouble is, you see, one slips through
32 these things and, at the end of the day, finds that people
33 have been assuming a certain thing but I have actually got
34 no admissible evidence on it.
35
36 MR. MORRIS: It is common ground.
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is not just legalistic peasantry.
39
40 MR. MORRIS: Obviously, we accept that he is a franchisee, but
41 we do not accept that that is not part of McDonald's.
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is another argument. What I want to
44 know is whether it is common ground that Ballantyne Foods
45 Limited was a licensee, and that the Canadian Company
46 either directly or indirectly was a wholly owned subsidiary
47 of the First Plaintiff. That is all I need to know.
48
49 MR. MORRIS: We will accept that.
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, very well. We go to Friday, do we, with
52 Mr. Sutcliffe?
53
54 MR. RAMPTON: Yes. I am sorry for the loss of a bit of time.
55 That is because my cross-examination was shorter than I had
56 anticipated.
57
58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am not unduly concerned. I would like
59 there to be as few days as possible which are missed in
60 court, but if they become preparation days I hope they will
