Day 124 - 10 May 95 - Page 38
1 doing it in those countries is because there is no pressure
2 being put on your Corporation to stop doing it in those
3 countries, so you can get away with it?
4 A. I do not accept that. You are -- the way you phrase
5 that question suggests that we operate in an irresponsible
6 fashion, and that is not the case. I think we want to do
7 the responsible thing, wherever we operate, in whatever
8 country we are present. I am not immediately conversant on
9 what kind of communication members of management have had
10 with the appropriate people in Turkey or the Philippines.
11 I do not know what communication advice was given our
12 managing directors in those two countries, but, based on my
13 knowledge of our operating philosophy and our ways of doing
14 business, I would certainly think that we would want to do
15 the responsible thing and have had communication with them
16 to phase out of the use of those packages, vehicles as soon
17 as possible. That is my general sense of how we would
18 handle that matter. But I do not know specifically what
19 direction, communication, advice we would have given the
20 heads of those countries. They make the decision, the
21 final decision, as to what packaging would be used in those
22 countries.
23
24 Q. When you say "as soon possible", that could be 10 years, 15
25 years?
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you know Mr. Beavers?
28 A. I do not know, my Lord. Again, I would -----
29
30 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We have had quite a lot of evidence on this.
31 You can mount an argument, in so far as you feel able, when
32 you have reflected on the evidence that McDonald's
33 withdrawal from CFCs and then HCFCs was not carried out
34 responsibly so far as speed and extent was concerned.
35 Mr. Beavers clearly cannot advance the matter.
36
37 THE WITNESS: My Lord, I would say this. I gave you a general
38 response to your question. As time goes on we continue to
39 try to fine-tune our system, to improve upon our packaging,
40 to improve upon our products, to bring better value, better
41 service to the marketplace, and as we become aware of
42 certain problems with some of our products or packages,
43 packaging, we will address those situations. As we learn
44 more about the products, we use, we reflect on that
45 knowledge and do the responsible thing.
46
47 We are constantly trying to update and improve our system.
48 We get information and knowledge from the suppliers that we
49 use from the research community, from our own internal
50 experience and research, and we try to reflect the benefit
51 of that knowledge in the delivery of products to the system
52 and the quality of the vehicles in which those products are
53 served. So I think then in that regard -----
54
55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just leave it there, Mr. Beavers. If you do
56 not know about HCFCs, quite frankly, it is for me to judge
57 whether your Corporation is dealing in a responsible way
58 with regard to it on the evidence. It is not for me to
59 advise a witness, but I think it is as well for the course
60 of this litigation if one does not express general opinions
