Day 057 - 29 Nov 94 - Page 40
1 hold that belief that a Reuter's telex would be an accurate
2 report on the situation, and that McDonald's would have the
3 details in their possession. It was this year, 1994, and
4 McDonald's advertising department in Denmark will
5 certainly, if the situation is true, have relevant copies
6 of documents. They can fax them to me, if they want. They
7 have my fax number and they do not have to even put it in
8 an envelope. I could have it by tomorrow morning.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What do you say, Mr. Rampton?
11
12 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I say again much the same as I said the
13 last time. I say it now in advance in relation to the next
14 item which is some supposed ruling in Sweden.
15
16 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can I start with this? Do you know whether
17 your clients do have a copy of any ruling?
18
19 MR. RAMPTON: Where, from Denmark or Sweden?
20
21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: From either.
22
23 MR. RAMPTON: Not at the moment, no. No, I do not. What
24 I object to is this, not making discovery on some issue
25 which is going to carry the matter forward, of course, I do
26 not object to that. I hope that your Lordship will think
27 we have done the best we can where every area where that
28 can be said.
29
30 What I do object to is this, fuelling Mr. Morris'
31 misconceived idea that because some authority or body or
32 association somewhere in the world has, as it were,
33 reflected criticisms which the Defendants might themselves
34 wish to make about McDonald's, whether it be advertising or
35 anything else, that that adds weight or fuel to the
36 Defendants' criticisms -- of course it does not.
37
38 If it were the case that the Defendants had alleged and
39 were in a position to prove (but they have not done so and
40 are not) that throughout the world McDonald's habitually
41 and deliberately flout local laws and regulations in
42 relation to the various areas of their activity, that would
43 be quite another matter. But, the opinion of the Denmark
44 bodies, whatever it might have been -- it may even just
45 have been some busy body, for all I know -- or the Swedish
46 Advertising Authority is of no more weight in your
47 Lordship's court and in relation to the decisions which
48 your Lordship has to make, which is whether the advertising
49 is inappropriate in one way or another, than does the
50 opinion of Mr. Steve Gardiner, the Assistant Attorney
51 General of Texas.
52
53 I say that for this reason, not because I object in
54 principle to making discovery -- I have said that already
55 -- but because Mr. Morris' idea that one just has to press
56 a button and the documents which he wants, no doubt, to
57 feed to the public at large will pop out of a slot from
58 within the McDonald's organisation is, quite honestly, a
59 nonsense.
60
