Day 307 - 27 Nov 96 - Page 50
1 admitted by Veggies to be incorrect, just one matter that
2 they were unable to trace specific evidence on. That was
3 the former rainforest matter. So McDonald's accepted that,
4 and the Veggies fact sheet was continued to be distributed
5 to this day as far as I know. So how could the circulation
6 of the London Greenpeace fact sheet, if it indeed did take
7 place before the Plaintiffs' leaflets and press releases,
8 possibly constitute some kind of additional attack from
9 which they had to defend themselves in any case? They had
10 not got a single scrap of evidence shown to this court that
11 the London Greenpeace fact sheet had been circulated at all
12 since 1990. And do not forget that the attack would have
13 had to come from me and Helen specifically.
14
15 I think Helen has dealt with the matter about losing
16 business, that they have to show how they have lost
17 business, we would say, bearing in mind that the criticisms
18 made in the London Greenpeace fact sheet and indeed other
19 literature are against the fast food industry as a whole as
20 well as McDonald's. They could hardly by losing business
21 to their competitors who are equally criticised in
22 substance in the material.
23
24 Another point which I have argued, I think in the first day
25 of the closing speeches, that McDonald's claimed
26 reputation, which they are claiming to have and to defend,
27 is in fact a kind of... What is the word -- a
28 schizophrenic reputation, where we have the manufacturers'
29 reputation which is created by huge advertising promotional
30 budgets and propaganda by the company, and then we have
31 the, if you like, real reputation which is as the provider
32 of Mcjobs, junk food, and all the other things that I went
33 through on the first day of closing speeches.
34
35 So, anyway, the attack would have to come from me and Helen
36 to be at all relevant in this case. They have not shown a
37 single example of anything we have done, that they would
38 have to respond by this literature that they have
39 produced. When I submit that we have to have a sense of
40 perspective, that a multi-national corporation issuing
41 300,000 leaflets and press releases to a huge range of
42 media, attacking our character on the eve of trial because
43 of some fact sheet that we may or may not have distributed
44 six years previously, when they have every other
45 opportunity -- sorry, four years previously -- conceivable
46 for an organisation, no organisation in the world was
47 better placed at that time to be able to put over their
48 point of view about their business practices, worldwide,
49 they have got a huge advertising promotional budget, huge
50 influence with the media.
51
52 And, not only that, they were about to walk into a court
53 room proudly to defend their reputation, what they
54 considered to be their reputation, with their absolutely
55 cast iron, invincible case which was so strong and ours so
56 weak that when we saw it a year previously to that we
57 should have packed the case in because we knew that we were
58 distributing lies. And yet they consciously chose to
59 organise a PR campaign in the media and to their customers
60 with carefully crafted words that went through a number of
