Day 059 - 01 Dec 94 - Page 38
1 yourself: You, apparently, had a meeting on 11th November
2 1987. Had you had any other meetings were Mr. O'Shea at
3 that time?
4 A. I had a meeting with David Marshall prior to that time,
5 yes.
6
7 Q. With Lin Pac?
8 A. Yes.
9
10 Q. I think you told us that was in the summer?
11 A. That was in, I think it was June or July 1987 in the
12 Middlethorpe Hotel in York. I cannot remember exactly
13 which month it was. I know it was about that time. I can
14 be sure it was about that time because I was actually going
15 to York Races, which I do very infrequently but I was
16 actually going to the races and Middlethorpe Hotel is at
17 the end of the racecourse.
18
19 Q. You will have to forgive my ignorance, but are York Races
20 flat races or jumping races?
21 A. Flat.
22
23 Q. That means they take place during summer, does it?
24 A. They are always mid summer.
25
26 Q. Page 510 AA, Lin Pac to McDonald's, numbered paragraph 1:
27 "Freon to Pentane. We will take every step to try and
28 meet a deadline of the end of March, to be in full
29 production of Pentane products. I will keep you updated on
30 progress." Can I ask you this, were you having to put any
31 pressure on Lin Pac to get ahead and make the change?
32 A. Yes, when you consider they were reluctant to make the
33 change anyway, the CFCs issue, even after the Montreal
34 Protocol, was still not anywhere near as top of mind as it
35 became subsequently. So, they really were reluctant
36 partners in making the change and, yes, we did keep
37 pressure on them. We did give them deadlines. As you saw
38 in an earlier letter, our deadline was April for testing
39 the products in the restaurants. So, therefore, their
40 deadline for production became the end of March, as it says
41 here.
42
43 Q. We noticed in an earlier letter that they gave you an
44 estimate of cost, what it would cost them, to make the
45 change over in equipment and so on, back to hydrocarbons
46 from CFCs, it was about £88,000, was it not?
47 A. Yes.
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: My recollection is correct, is it not, that
50 the Montreal Protocol, we had some of the dates, but it did
51 not say "All change now" ---
52
53 MR. RAMPTON: Oh, no.
54
55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- it had dates for various things to fall
56 into place.
57
58 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, with some of them stretching into the next
59 century. I was not going to go back over that point
60 because it is all there.
