Day 158 - 19 Jul 95 - Page 57
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: To what extent am I empowered to tinker with
3 a proposed amendment and then grant leave to amend in some
4 more restrictive form, unless the person who wants the
5 amendment actually applies for it in that form?
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7 MR. RAMPTON: I do not know. Unless your Lordship produces
8 something absolutely horrendous which prompts me to go
9 straight to the Court of Appeal, I really would not want to
10 commit myself about that. I cannot really see an
11 objection, but I really do think that in its present form
12 at least it is a pretty good nonsense, because the only
13 actual areas identified are the Vesty areas. The Braslo
14 areas are not even spoken about in this pleading.
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16 MR. MORRIS: That is not true. the plant is based in Goiais,
17 the northern most plant, and Mato Grosso is bordering
18 Goiais and Mato Grosso Do Sul.
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20 MR. RAMPTON: Then if Mr. Morris is saying that Mato Grosso
21 Do Sul is or was rain forest he must say so. If he is
22 saying that Goiais was he must say so. There is one of the
23 Braslo plants in Goiais, that is Goiana and that is all.
24 The others are by implication all excluded from Mr. Morris'
25 pleading: Campo Grande, Uberiandia and Bauru. That is
26 because I said he has conflated or confused the Vesty
27 question, which is a narrow distant piece of ancient
28 history, with the continuing supply of meat to McDonald's
29 in Brazil. He says in his pleading that Barretos, if
30 I have it right, is in a region including and/or border an
31 area of ex-rainforest land. Barretos I think is about ----
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33 MR. MORRIS: No, it does not say that.
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35 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think the "plant" is possibly not the best
36 word to use. Just allow me a moment. No, it is fair
37 enough, it comes from the letter.
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39 MR. RAMPTON: Yes.
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41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But "plant" may be appropriate to Barretos
42 but not to Mato Grosso if one inserts "Do Sul" and "Goiais"
43 because they are not plants.
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45 MR. MORRIS: They are regions as specified in the pleading.
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47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: They are McDonald's raw material suppliers.
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49 MR. RAMPTON: I would like to know in due course if any part of
50 this pleading were allowed which are the parts respectively
51 of Mato Grosso and Goiais which either have in them
52 ex-rainforest land, and this is an assertion of fact, my
53 Lord, this is not an inference based on anything, it is an
54 assertion of fact, because it says that they either include
55 or they border areas of rain forest land. I would
56 certainly want to know which parts of those very large
57 areas were once rain forest, in other words including
58 ex-rainforest land, and which parts border ex-rainforest
59 land, where those parts are in each case, how large they
60 are and how long ago it was that they were rain forest.
