Day 070 - 20 Dec 94 - Page 12
1 lunch.
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You can do that if you want, but I do not
4 think you are, actually. I think you are just saying that
5 more has come out about Brazil and you are putting down the
6 marker that there must be discovery about anything relevant
7 to a Brazil issue.
8
9 MR. MORRIS: Yes.
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I, personally, think you do not have to
12 underline that point, on the information I have, but you
13 are entitled to make it.
14
15 MR. MORRIS: Yes. An overview is that it is relevant that if
16 McDonald's are exporting from countries that have
17 rainforests to other countries, whether it is US or
18 elsewhere, because the same principles apply in terms of
19 our pleadings and the pressure put within those countries
20 on the use of cattle ranches in general, and space.
21
22 So it is relevant in the case, not to just to prove it may
23 have come from ex-rainforest land, which it might well have
24 been done anyway, but I think there are various discrete
25 areas. There is the specific consignment, discovery
26 relating to that consignment which the Plaintiffs now have
27 a witness on, you know, the amount and when, and the
28 negotiations they had to get a licence, how long that
29 licence was maintained for and whether there were any other
30 consignments the following year or the following years. So
31 I think that is a discrete area.
32
33 There is the discovery from the Brazil end, whether it is a
34 map, other documents, what the policy is, what the
35 restricted areas are and when that started, obviously going
36 back to 1983 when the consignment came over.
37
38 Then there is the matter, as this has now been found that
39 the events have occurred, on the exports from Brazil to
40 McDonald's in other countries in general.
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What is your foundation for saying that?
43
44 MR. MORRIS: The foundation is that the Plaintiffs have denied
45 that they have exported from Brazil to McDonald's anywhere
46 and, by chance, we have discovered they have done.
47
48 MR. RAMPTON: No, my Lord. I do not understand the Plaintiffs
49 ever to have said that.
50
51 MR. MORRIS: Dr. Gomez Gonzalez said that.
52
53 MR. RAMPTON: What is the foundation for the opposite
54 suggestion?
55
56 MR. MORRIS: The opposite suggestion is that they have exported
57 from Brazil to the UK. It just so happens that this is the
58 country that litigation is taking place in and, by complete
59 chance, we actually found out from a wrongly disclosed or
60 mistakenly disclosed document. Therefore, in my opinion,
