Day 157 - 18 Jul 95 - Page 38
1 We would ask for leave to appeal, ask you to give us leave
2 to appeal on any or all of the applications. Obviously,
3 that is at your discretion. Then, pending that appeal, to
4 seek that we should have an adjournment, obviously, because
5 if it needs to be resolved, that whether it would be fair
6 for the trial to continue without us having transcripts,
7 then it should not continue with us not having transcripts
8 until that matter is resolved.
9
10 That is all I have to say at the moment.
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. Do you want to say anything, Ms. Steel?
13
14 MS. STEEL: Yes, but actually I was about to say half of what
15 Dave has just said, so I am just trying to cut out the bits
16 so that I am not too repetitive.
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Only address me if there is something new
19 that you wish to say.
20
21 MS. STEEL: I just wanted to say, to reiterate, there is no
22 reason why we should give any undertaking to the
23 Plaintiffs. There are no similar conditions on their use
24 of transcript. Why should we be forced to accept all
25 manner of unnecessary restrictions and conditions just
26 because we do not have the resources of a multinational
27 Company?
28
29 If we had agreed to the original restrictions and
30 conditions that the Plaintiffs were seeking to get us to
31 agree to last week, we would have signed away what we were
32 legally entitled to do. To be quite honest, it would not
33 surprise me if what is in their current so-called "offer"
34 goes beyond what we would be legally entitled to use the
35 transcripts for. There is no written provision for any
36 such undertaking in any of the law books that we have seen.
37
38 The conditions that they are trying to set down are
39 completely impractical, that if we want to show it to
40 witnesses we have to ensure its immediate return. We have
41 witnesses all around the world. What are we supposed
42 to do? Send off copies of the transcripts to Canada and
43 Australia and then spending ages chasing them up on the
44 phone to make sure they send them back the following week?
45 The whole is, I mean, just totally impractical. I do
46 believe, as Dave has just said, they gave their game away
47 last week when they would not even agree to let us have the
48 transcripts at the reduced rate immediately rather than
49 waiting three weeks. This is about trying to sabotage our
50 defence and our preparation for cross-examination of
51 witnesses and other matters that we have to prepare and do
52 in court.
53
54 I think it would be reasonable to strike out the
55 Plaintiffs' case and award costs to us on the basis of an
56 abuse of the process because the trial will clearly become
57 unmanageable, and that is obviously the aim of the
58 Plaintiffs.
59
60 I just want to say I think the Plaintiffs have also had a
