Day 284 - 22 Oct 96 - Page 11
1 it is indicative of a sudden genuine concern, that concern
2 is only as a result of criticism that may be affecting the
3 business or the image of the company.
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Right. Even if as a result of genuine
6 concern, only the result of criticism. And I suppose you
7 would go on to say and after making the decision to open up
8 and enlarge in Costa Rica, Guatemala and Brazil, in any
9 event? I am trying to help you.
10
11 MR. MORRIS: Yes. I am going to go into policy in some detail
12 in a minute. I have just given the context in order to go
13 to the meaning.
14
15 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
16
17 MR. MORRIS: So moving on to the meaning, bearing in mind the
18 context of the fact sheet, the meaning, if we can call it
19 page 2, which is - the one with the picture is page 1, the
20 one with the face and the mask, page 1 - page 2, which we
21 might call 'the economic imperialism page'.
22
23 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
24
25 MR. MORRIS: Hang on, before I just deal with that. The
26 overall meaning is, in terms of what the issue is between
27 the parties, Mr. Rampton set that out very well on the
28 first day in his opening speech, which was on page 48.
29
30 "My Lord, finally, I come to the rainforests. The issue,
31 as I have stated it, is this: have the plaintiffs ever
32 been responsible directly or indirectly for the destruction
33 of any part of the world's rainforests."
34
35 We think that is a good statement of what the position is
36 on this issue. Obviously we believe we can prove both.
37 And that is the sting, effectively, of the meaning of this
38 whole section, whatever the detail may or may not be for
39 any particular sentence, is McDonald's are involved
40 directly or indirectly in the destruction of areas of
41 tropical forests, which he calls rainforest. We think the
42 terms are interchangeable. We will come to that later.
43
44 And we accept that that meaning is capable of being
45 defamatory. We believe that the words mean that the
46 plaintiffs bear moral responsibility for the destruction or
47 damage of such forests associated with the activities of
48 their industry that they are part of and can be shown to be
49 a part of, and the materials, raw materials, the beef used
50 by themselves as well.
51
52 We would say that the moral responsibility means that the
53 plaintiffs have caused, have benefited from, have provided
54 the incentive for, or have been reckless as to the effects
55 that are being alleged, in fact that have been
56 demonstrated, the environmentally destructive industry that
57 they are part of, and a significant part of.
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can I transpose all of that into economic
60 imperialism as well but just substituting the destruction
