Day 307 - 27 Nov 96 - Page 50


     
     1        admitted by Veggies to be incorrect, just one matter that
     2        they were unable to trace specific evidence on.  That was
     3        the former rainforest matter.  So McDonald's accepted that,
     4        and the Veggies fact sheet was continued to be distributed
     5        to this day as far as I know.  So how could the circulation
     6        of the London Greenpeace fact sheet, if it indeed did take
     7        place before the Plaintiffs' leaflets and press releases,
     8        possibly constitute some kind of additional attack from
     9        which they had to defend themselves in any case?  They had
    10        not got a single scrap of evidence shown to this court that
    11        the London Greenpeace fact sheet had been circulated at all
    12        since 1990.  And do not forget that the attack would have
    13        had to come from me and Helen specifically.
    14
    15        I think Helen has dealt with the matter about losing
    16        business, that they have to show how they have lost
    17        business, we would say, bearing in mind that the criticisms
    18        made in the London Greenpeace fact sheet and indeed other
    19        literature are against the fast food industry as a whole as
    20        well as McDonald's.  They could hardly by losing business
    21        to their competitors who are equally criticised in
    22        substance in the material.
    23
    24        Another point which I have argued, I think in the first day
    25        of the closing speeches, that McDonald's claimed
    26        reputation, which they are claiming to have and to defend,
    27        is in fact a kind of...  What is the word -- a
    28        schizophrenic reputation, where we have the manufacturers'
    29        reputation which is created by huge advertising promotional
    30        budgets and propaganda by the company, and then we have
    31        the, if you like, real reputation which is as the provider
    32        of Mcjobs, junk food, and all the other things that I went
    33        through on the first day of closing speeches.
    34
    35        So, anyway, the attack would have to come from me and Helen
    36        to be at all relevant in this case.  They have not shown a
    37        single example of anything we have done, that they would
    38        have to respond by this literature that they have
    39        produced.  When I submit that we have to have a sense of
    40        perspective, that a multi-national corporation issuing
    41        300,000 leaflets and press releases to a huge range of
    42        media, attacking our character on the eve of trial because
    43        of some fact sheet that we may or may not have distributed
    44        six years previously, when they have every other
    45        opportunity -- sorry, four years previously -- conceivable
    46        for an organisation, no organisation in the world was
    47        better placed at that time to be able to put over their
    48        point of view about their business practices, worldwide,
    49        they have got a huge advertising promotional budget, huge
    50        influence with the media. 
    51 
    52        And, not only that, they were about to walk into a court 
    53        room proudly to defend their reputation, what they
    54        considered to be their reputation, with their absolutely
    55        cast iron, invincible case which was so strong and ours so
    56        weak that when we saw it a year previously to that we
    57        should have packed the case in because we knew that we were
    58        distributing lies.  And yet they consciously chose to
    59        organise a PR campaign in the media and to their customers
    60        with carefully crafted words that went through a number of

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