Day 149 - 06 Jul 95 - Page 29
1 ones we have. They were done by Mark's, or whatever. They
2 are obviously compilation. My Lord, it was document E,
3 behind Lyn Mead's statement, which is tab 7 of volume X.
4 My Lord, I think it is the last of the documents, the
5 printouts in E, which I seem to remember was the sixth
6 page. Yes, it is. One sees the two quarters from one year
7 and one from a different year, where one has not only the
8 actual turnover percentages, but one has the numbers of
9 people that give rise to the calculation.
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The equivalent for that would be not to have
12 them all month by month, but year, to date figures at the
13 end of one particular year.
14
15 MR. RAMPTON: It would be the equivalent. As I say, if it can
16 be done for the years '88, '89 and '90 without a huge
17 amount of time and expense, then no doubt it would be
18 done. But I do not know whether it can be or not. All
19 I would say is that I question whether it is even worth
20 bothering with. My Lord, I will leave that to
21 your Lordship.
22
23 Much of what I have to say in the area of discovery
24 throughout the course of this case has been governed of
25 course, in part, by the question of relevance, but also
26 because I continually keep my eye on the question: is the
27 discovery necessary?
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
30
31 MR. RAMPTON: That is one area where I would submit that it may
32 well not be -- only, really, so that Ms. Steel can see if
33 she can make some criticisms of percentages. One asks the
34 question: if that be the proposed exercise, what on earth
35 is the point of it, given that only broad excesses over
36 100 per cent really have any significance?
37
38 My Lord, the list of beef suppliers. Now we have to admit
39 to having overlooked something. They were sent to us,
40 my Lord. (Pause) We got it last night. I was about to
41 make an apology that we had been sitting on it. Not so.
42 They have arrived. They relate only to one year, because
43 that is all the records there are; and I think the year is
44 this year. I am told -- I am not giving evidence -- that
45 they have not changed since at least 1989, and probably
46 earlier. Some of the names have changed, but that is all.
47 I will pass up copies.
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: So you are saying that lists or readily
50 available material from which lists could readily be made,
51 which was really the essence of what I ruled before ---
52
53 MR. RAMPTON: It was, yes.
54
55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- is just available for ---
56
57 MR. RAMPTON: -- for the current period. There is no reason why
58 a company like McDonald's should keep that kind of idiotic
59 historical information, unless there is some reason to keep
60 it. We can, we know, find out from other sources of
