Day 283 - 21 Oct 96 - Page 43


     
     1        we will lose our contracts".
     2
     3        And can I just say, moving on to -- I do not know if this
     4        is a sort of standard, whether it is so obvious that people
     5        never say it, obviously if someone is working for
     6        McDonald's they are not going to be independent and
     7        therefore their evidence should be scrutinised ever more
     8        sharply because it is inevitable they are going to come and
     9        promote their company.
    10
    11        Whereas our witnesses were all completely independent.
    12        Virtually none of them had we ever met before.  The
    13        witnesses of facts, I do not believe any of them had a
    14        grudge against McDonald's.  Virtually none of them had
    15        approached us.  We were searching for witnesses to bring to
    16        the case and none of our witnesses did we have any chance
    17        to brief them before they wrote their statements.  Just to
    18        chat over the phone.  Most of the statements were written
    19        by those witnesses themselves.
    20
    21        And, you know -- well, I cannot give evidence here, but
    22        I have said a number of times in the case we just said to
    23        them just get down your experiences and your views on that
    24        subject.  And a lot of the witnesses, probably the
    25        majority, we only met for the first time 15 minutes before
    26        they were due to go in court and we think that the way they
    27        conducted themselves in court, considering their lack of
    28        what I am sure would be normal in any case, intensive
    29        briefing, says something about the quality of their
    30        evidence.  So I think that that should be borne in mind.
    31        Maybe briefing is not the right word, but whatever
    32        solicitors do when they talk to witnesses beforehand.
    33
    34        The last point I would like to make about the overall view
    35        of the way we conducted the case is that we particularly,
    36        as you have probably noticed, tried to gain admissions from
    37        McDonald's witnesses because, rightly or wrongly, we
    38        believed that faced with McDonald's witnesses' word against
    39        our witnesses, the fact that they can bring anybody they
    40        want and they can brief them, that and the fact that they
    41        are paid officials of a multi-national corporation or a UK
    42        subsidiary, we always felt that we had to do a little bit
    43        more than just ask our witnesses to come to the witness box
    44        and tell the truth, but that we had to also gain
    45        information and admissions from McDonald's own witnesses,
    46        which we hope cannot be ignored.
    47
    48        I am going to go through the fact sheet.  I can start doing
    49        it now, if it is appropriate, not so much the fact sheet
    50        but the issues, only in kind of overview. 
    51 
    52   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Well, start now and then when it gets around 
    53        4 o'clock pick a moment when you want to break off.
    54
    55   MR. MORRIS:   Right.  Starting with the environment, this has
    56        tended to focus on tropical forests in general including
    57        the effects of soya production, but --
    58
    59   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   I may have to divide it into economic
    60        imperialism first, rainforest second, but they were very

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