Day 083 - 06 Feb 95 - Page 28
1 is that McDonald's will expect to have a copy of any
2 document they wish from their suppliers. That is not just
3 an oral thing, but it is also in their contracts about
4 making "available for inspection". The obvious thing is
5 that "inspection" means also a right to have a copy of any
6 document.
7
8 Obviously, they do not want the suppliers to send them a
9 copy of every document they have in their possession, so
10 they only ask specifically that they will provide regularly
11 some kind of summary of what is going on. But it does not
12 mean to say that they do not have the right to have any
13 document in the possession of the suppliers. There is no
14 contractual restriction of that right, except for this
15 class of documents or except only for business rather than
16 disclosure in a court case or whatever.
17
18 So, I would say that whatever the law is on the
19 authorities, the case for the Plaintiffs is that -- I think
20 that Mr. Rampton was clutching at straws really with the
21 contracts because the contracts are pretty clear, in my
22 opinion. He grasped at the word "confidential", if I can
23 find that? I think it was page 11. I am not sure. Is it
24 on page 33? Page 20, confidential; it was the second
25 paragraph on page 20. Do you have page 20 in front of
26 you?
27
28 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
29
30 MR. MORRIS: Mr. Rampton homed in on the word "confidential" on
31 page 20 in the second paragraph, second to last line.
32 I think he homed in on that quite desperately because it is
33 quite clear what the contracts mean in terms of access to
34 documents. But he seemed to raise some kind of meaning of
35 the word "confidential" which to me it can only mean
36 confidential to McDonald's, i.e. it will be in a file that
37 other clients of those suppliers would not have access to.
38 It is quite clear that it is a file that is confidential to
39 McDonald's. So, they can be reassured that McDonald's will
40 only have access to that file rather than anybody else.
41
42 I cannot see it could have any other meaning apart from
43 that. It certainly could not have the meaning that
44 Mr. Rampton said which was somehow confidential would mean
45 it would be secret and that McDonald's would not have
46 access to it, which would be, what is the point of them
47 stipulating that in that case in their contractual
48 agreement?
49
50 So, we would say the Plaintiffs have access which includes
51 copies of any documents in the possession of their
52 suppliers; if they have that relationship with their
53 suppliers, they certainly have that relationship to their
54 subsidiaries; that all the evidence that has been heard in
55 this case and all the documents that we have seen
56 McDonald's pride themselves on 100 per cent access to
57 information from their subsidiaries. I am talking about
58 McDonald's sections outside the UK which come under the
59 umbrella of the Corporation. Because they choose to use
60 various terms such as "McDonald's family", or whatever,
