Day 012 - 18 Jul 94 - Page 76
1 there was no enforcement proceeding, there were no consent
decrees that I can recall.
2
MR. JUSTICE BELL: There may be a different terminology here.
3 To a lawyer anything may be voluntary which is not made
under legal compulsion, that is, has been made the subject
4 of a statutory regulation or a court order. It may be
voluntary with some shoving from an authority.
5
MS. STEEL: That is what I was going to come to.
6
MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
7
MS. STEEL: Is not the reality that these state Attorneys
8 General were saying that if McDonald's was not going to
provide this nutritional labelling, they were going to
9 bring in laws or, I do not know, use existing laws -- I am
not clear exactly what there was in place already -- they
10 were going to take some kind of action to force McDonald's
to provide these listings?
11 A. I think whenever you are dealing with the Attorney
General, that type of a threat is always there, even if
12 not spoken directly, I do not think there is any question
about that. My recollection on this occasion was that
13 there was an exchange of information. We advised them
what we were doing.
14
They saw this also as a good opportunity for them to show
15 that -- this was my impression -- to show the type of work
that they are doing for their people, and for that reason
16 in an unprecedented step which has never been done before,
as far as I am aware, or ever, they agreed to a joint
17 press statement with McDonald's having half of the control
on the statements. It is just unheard of for the Attorney
18 General to agree to something like that. We saw that as a
good opportunity for us.
19
Q. Did you not say to them: "We are not interested in the
20 joint press statement because we are doing this entirely
voluntarily, so what has it to do with you?"
21 A. Quite the contrary. We had some internal discussions
and there were comments saying that if they want to take
22 credit for it, how does that hurt us? It will foster a
long term, good relationship with them for the
23 corporation. There was no animosity in this encounter.
That is why we were so terribly surprised, having got that
24 letter from Mr. Ray Burns' (?) office without any real
prior notice after the add campaign as well. Things were
25 moving smoothly.
26 Q. So you are saying that, essentially, McDonald's agreed to
do a joint statement which may have led people to get the
27 wrong impression, just for the sake of fostering good
relations with the New York Attorney General?
28 A. I am not sure I understand your question in terms of
people getting the wrong impression. We were on the
29 pathway of distributing more comprehensive information.
The Attorney General advised us that this was something
30 that they were looking into; it was something that was of
interest to them.
