Day 189 - 20 Nov 95 - Page 43


     
     1        It is only that last document does contain a very great
     2        deal of, not only hearsay by her, but material contributed
     3        by other persons.  It is really a matter for your Lordship
     4        how best Mr. Morris and Ms. Steel should be encouraged to
     5        deal with that problem when Miss Lamb comes to give
     6        evidence.  I do not really want to go through it now and I
     7        am sure your Lordship does not either.
     8
     9   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I would rather not if only because I have not
    10        reread -- I reread Miss Lamb's statement but I have not
    11        read the whole of that which comes afterwards for some
    12        time.
    13
    14   MR. RAMPTON:  Your Lordship will see that, besides the
    15        solicitor, Mr. Jeffrey Grimes, there is Miss lamb,
    16        Mr. Siamak Alimi and this gentleman, Steve Percy, I think
    17        his name is, who contribute to that meeting in different
    18        ways.  Plainly, one cannot have the whole thing read out
    19        because most of what is in it it turns out does not come
    20        from Miss Lamb at all; it comes from the other two.
    21
    22   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  One of the people she interviewed was an
    23        Assistant Manager.
    24
    25   MR. RAMPTON:  Quite.  I had not really given that any thought.
    26        That may, as in other cases, merely affect its weight.
    27        There is a recent case in the Privy Council -- I will tell
    28        your Lordship the name of it now -- which deals with the
    29        question of what is to be attributed to a Company which
    30        might in due course be of some importance in this case.
    31        The name of the case is Meridian Global Funds Management
    32        (Asia) Limited v. The Securities Commission.  It is a New
    33        Zealand case.  It is reported in part 31 of this year's
    34        Weekly Law Reports.  The reference is 1995, 3 W.L.R. 413.
    35
    36        I think the opinion of their Lordships is delivered by Lord
    37        Hoffmann.  It is a penetrating analysis of what one might
    38        call the principle of directing will or directing mind so
    39        far as companies are concerned.
    40
    41        My Lord, also in this context where admissions may or may
    42        not be attributable to the Company, paragraph 24-45 of the
    43        latest edition of Phipson headed "Corporations and their
    44        Officers".  There is rather a lot of old learning in that.
    45
    46        Rather than taking objection at this stage to particular
    47        attributions, your Lordship may think it more convenient
    48        if, at the end of the evidence, because there is an
    49        enormous amount of hearsay gone in anyway, whether
    50        legitimately or not, I direct your Lordship to what 
    51        I believe to be the relevant principles where statements 
    52        made by McDonald's employees are concerned. 
    53
    54   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I think I would be greatly helped by you
    55        doing that in due course because, quite apart from the
    56        occasions where it has been raised, while a witness is in
    57        the witness box, there are obviously a number of other
    58        occasions where witnesses on both sides have delivered
    59        themselves of hearsay evidence.  This point, obviously,
    60        only relates to evidence which the Defendants have led

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