Day 024 - 15 Sep 94 - Page 23
1 by so doing, by putting out a press release without saying
2 that the other companies had also agreed to this
3 initiative, and without admitting they only came to the
4 agreement after being contacted by our offices, they were
5 trying to mislead the public into believing McDonald's to
6 be a leader in this regard rather than a follower.
7
8 Q. Turning back to the letter.
9 A. July 21st?
10
11 Q. Yes.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you actually have the Associated Press
14 report or a copy of it?
15 A. My Lord, I believe I handed it to Ms. Steel this
16 morning. I did have it earlier; I do not have it on me.
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am not asking you to look at it now, but
19 if you have a copy of it, hand it to Mrs. Brinley-Codd.
20
21 MS. STEEL: Right. If we get copies made or something?
22
23 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
24
25 MR. RAMPTON: It is plainly a disclosed document. We have
26 never been able to find it. That is why we have not had
27 it.
28
29 MS. STEEL: We will get copies made at lunch time.
30
31 THE WITNESS: I believe, your Lordship, this is one of the
32 documents I received either Thursday or Friday.
33
34 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do not concern yourself with that at the
35 moment. You may be asked more about it.
36
37 MR. RAMPTON: I notice that Mr. Gardner mentioned one of the
38 documents; if there are other relevant documents in the
39 hands of the defendants, we would ask for them.
40
41 MS. STEEL: We were given another press cutting which was
42 already in our Defendants' trial bundles anyway.
43 (To the witness): Just looking at this letter from the
44 solicitors, if you go on to the second page, McDonald's
45 are claiming that they have taken the lead in distributing
46 brochures and generally trying to give an impression that
47 such information was already available. Do you think that
48 is true?
49 A. True that it was already available? No. As I said
50 earlier, although a consumer who somehow became aware that
51 these documents were in some file cabinet at company
52 headquarters might be able to get a copy, they were not
53 otherwise available. Whether they had been planning this
54 for some time, I do not believe is true because of their
55 repeated refusal to agree to do this. All we were asking
56 them for was an agreement that they would distribute these
57 brochures nationwide. We were not asking for penalties.
58 We were not asking that they pay any form of sanction or
59 that they enter into any form of injunction, which would
60 have been a standard way of resolving a case with an
