Day 025 - 16 Sep 94 - Page 60
1 suggesting) that they started the good move of their own
2 initiative, together with New York; they were going along
3 quite nicely; they were doing it in a gradual sort of
4 way. Then you and California come in, and New York as
5 well, and they say, rightly or wrongly, but this is what
6 is proposed to you: "Why should the Attorneys General of
7 Texas and California take credit or some credit for what
8 we initiated ourselves in the first place? Therefore, by
9 one means or another we are going to get our press release
10 out in our own way first." That is it.
11
12 MR. RAMPTON: That is absolutely it, my Lord.
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is that possible?
15 A. It is possible. I prefer not to believe that
16 McDonald's deliberately engaged in a campaign of deception
17 not only against the public but against the Attorneys
18 General of California and Texas. If is so, that would
19 lead to an entirely different investigation of an entirely
20 different nature. That failure to co-operate and, indeed,
21 misrepresentations to the Attorney General would be truly
22 unheard of by any company of national reputation. It
23 would not surprise me for some fly-by-night thief who
24 operates out of the trunk of his car to come in and
25 misrepresent his intentions to me.
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The misrepresentation you are talking about
28 is leading you to believe they could not make a decision
29 until after the holiday weekend, when on the Thursday
30 before 4th July they memoed their family that they were
31 going to make the announcement. Is that the deception?
32 A. Not the only, no, your Lordship. Also if, indeed,
33 they had already decided to do this, they need only have
34 told us that and it would created an entirely different
35 negotiation.
36
37 We are used to working with companies that have taken the
38 lead and ensuring they get the credit they deserve. You
39 saw what the state, I believe the press releases in front
40 of the court that you saw, of what the State of New York
41 did with McDonald's to announce McDonald's step forward in
42 New York. We believed (and I still believe) that
43 companies that take the lead deserve the credit for having
44 taken the lead.
45
46 In fact, had McDonald's been straightforward with us from
47 the "get go", from the moment we wrote to them and called
48 up and said: "Gee, we are coming to your meeting but we
49 are planning to do this already and we will make that
50 commitment to you", then we would have worked with them,
51 in essence, and, in all honesty, to parlay their
52 co-operation against the other, so we could say:
53 "McDonald's is already doing this; McDonald's has taken
54 the lead and we would like you all to follow McDonald's
55 lead". If McDonald's presumed to the contrary, McDonald's
56 presumed incorrectly, but McDonald's acting on an
57 incorrect presumption would have misled us by saying when
58 we asked what their plans are that their plans are not to
59 go forward in this area, that they are not willing to make
60 that commitment. I find that behaviour sufficiently
