Day 286 - 24 Oct 96 - Page 12
1 Costa Rica and Guatemala, although he may have visited a
2 number of times to Brazil or indeed Costa Rica, and I think
3 it is quite likely that McDonald's executives would be
4 spending a lot of time in meetings and planning. In any
5 event, wherever he is going he is relying on other people
6 telling him what is going on.
7
8 I have thought of an important point but it has gone out of
9 my head. It does not matter. I am sure the case will not
10 hinge on it.
11
12 So, I think that his evidence should be treated very
13 carefully. He did say about "the policy being formulated,
14 I mean formalised, in 1989", which I do not believe was a
15 slip of the tongue; I believe the first word was the
16 truth. It was exactly the same word that Edie Bensilum
17 used to David Rose.
18
19 This is a bit bizarre, I have some references which have
20 not got the day number, I have the page and line number.
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Give me those. Are they Mr. Cesca?
23
24 MR. MORRIS: Yes, Mr. Cesca. I think it is the first day of
25 his evidence. Page 24, line 47. About in Costa Rica,
26 Guatemala and Brazil -- "as far as he knew" -- cows were
27 not taken from land which was formally rainforests. He did
28 not seem very confident about that. He said at page 27,
29 line 21, "No McDonald's supplier has ever been discontinued
30 on the grounds that they have acted in breach of the
31 policy." As we have demonstrated, we believe that there is
32 massive breach of the so-called policy continuing to this
33 day, as far as we know to this day, in Gioias State, and
34 Mr. Cesca knew of no action to deal with that.
35
36 I am just missing out a lot of points that do not need to
37 be brought up, so it is saving time.
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. (Pause)
40
41 MR. MORRIS: I think around page 52 and 53 -- no, sorry, let
42 us forget that. I am sort of trying to stick to Brazil.
43 I have kind of jumped around.
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I suggest is, we have a five minute
46 break there and try and use it to see what else you have to
47 say about specific references about Brazil.
48
49 MR. MORRIS: Right.
50
51 (Short Adjournment)
52
53 MR. MORRIS: Just a few points. Mr. Cesca relies heavily on
54 what Mr. Morganti has told him, that seems clear. In fact,
55 the court relies heavily on what Mr. Morganti has told us
56 and the question is: is it the complete picture? I think
57 there is, we would say, strong evidence to say that
58 Mr. Morganti is not forthcoming with all the facts, or even
59 the reliability of what he says can be questioned. For
60 example, his first statement, which we argued about when we
