Day 313 - 13 Dec 96 - Page 26
1
2 You also asked the other day about the point in McDonald's
3 press release where McDonald's claimed that we were
4 represented by top city lawyers, or something like that.
5 Sorry, it says, "It has also been suggested that McDonald's
6 have had the unfair benefit of legal advice. The group
7 have long had the informal support of lawyers and this was
8 formalised with the appointment of a City law firm and two
9 specialist libel barristers to advise them".
10
11 Now, you asked about whether or not that was defamatory of
12 us. It could be defamatory in the sense of suggesting
13 that-----
14
15 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not think that can be. It is not
16 pleaded or referred to.
17
18 MS. STEEL: In a sense.
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20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I would have thought your point on this is
21 whether it helps me as to McDonald's motives.
22
23 MS. STEEL: I was going to say, briefly, it could be said that
24 suggesting we were not entirely being honest about whether
25 or not we had assistance, and so on, but anyway we have not
26 specifically complained of that. But the point is that it
27 does go to show that McDonald's does not care about the
28 truth of what they write and, in fact, when Mr. Rampton
29 said about the purpose of this being in there, when you
30 asked him the other day, he said "It was a fair response to
31 the Defendants' repeated dripping on stone of the
32 suggestion that we were too pathetic, unwaged individuals
33 going to be taken to the cleaners and crushed in the mangle
34 of the evil empire of ronald mcdonald."
35
36 Whilst we have most definitely never described ourselves as
37 pathetic, the fact of the matter was we were two unwaged
38 individuals up against a massive multi-national with almost
39 unlimited resources and a top legal team, and so the
40 suggestion made in that paragraph of the press release is
41 false, and Mr. Rampton has effectively admitted that the
42 purpose of that allegation was to counter our argument
43 about the imbalance of resources and hence the unfairness
44 of the whole procedure. The fact is that what we were
45 saying was true, and what McDonald's said was lies.
46 Obviously, we have said that in court and that is our view.
47
48 The final point about the counterclaim. In relation to
49 damages we are still not, I do not know, in a position to
50 put forward a figure because we do not really know.
51
52 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think it is very difficult to put figures
53 at the moment, it is just that you can if you wish.
54
55 MS. STEEL: Right. OK.
56
57 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But it is not held against you in any way if
58 you do not.
59
60 MS. STEEL: OK. Well, just another thing that we would like to
