Day 270 - 28 Jun 96 - Page 57


     
     1        made the statement from Burger King, whether they have
     2        personal knowledge of what is said there, or whether it is
     3        hearsay.
     4
     5   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What is the name of the person concerned?
     6
     7   MR. ATKINSON:  It does not, as far as I can see --
     8
     9   MR. MORRIS:  If I can explain.
    10
    11   MR. ATKINSON:  It simply says it is from Burger King Customer
    12        Relations.  I cannot see a name of a person within that
    13        department.
    14
    15   MR. MORRIS:  What happened was that I have served this as a
    16        Civil Evidence Act notice statement.  I did explain at the
    17        time, it was probably about six months ago I did this, and
    18        I explained at the time what happened was that I wrote to
    19        Burger King just to confirm that they had no stores in
    20        Costa Rica.  In any event, as we have heard, I think, from
    21        a couple of those witnesses themselves, that there were no
    22        stores in Costa Rica until 1990 or 1991.  But just in case
    23        there may be any shadow of a doubt left, that when Sergio
    24        Quintana talked about supplying McDonald's and Burger King,
    25        he was clearly referring about the USA.  If you like, this
    26        was the icing on the cake because McDonald's own witnesses
    27        have conceded there were no Burger King stores in Costa
    28        Rica until around 1990.
    29
    30   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What is the name of the person concerned?
    31
    32   MR. MORRIS:  The point was I wrote a letter to Burger King
    33        asking them to give the dates when their first store opened
    34        in Costa Rica, and what I got back was a fax, which was
    35        just my letter back with a typewritten thing saying first
    36        store in Costa Rica opened on March 12th 1990, and that was
    37        faxed me back from Burger King Corporation Latin America
    38        Caribbean market.  It has got the date 26th October 1995,
    39        9.39 in the morning.
    40
    41        Basically I did say that was a bit bizarre, that I did not
    42        get a handwritten or signed reply, but that actually came
    43        from the Burger King Corporation back, which did not sound
    44        very efficient on their part.  But that was it.  So I am
    45        just going to make a notice that I wanted to rely on that
    46        communication from Burger King.  If I can pass that one up
    47        (handed).
    48
    49   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What do you say about it, Mr. Atkinson?
    50 
    51   MR. ATKINSON:  It probably will not make any difference at the 
    52        end of the day, but the fact is that if one does not have 
    53        the name of the person who made it, it is not signed, for
    54        example, I (a) do not know who has made it, and (b) what
    55        that person's knowledge of the matter is.
    56
    57   MR. MORRIS:  I am not that bothered either way to push it.  I
    58        tell you why:  Because Peter Heller says it in his
    59        statement, that there were no Burger Kings in Costa Rica
    60        when he was filming.  I believe Mr. Cesca also said the

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