Day 083 - 06 Feb 95 - Page 53
1 MR. RAMPTON: I wonder if it is.
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is not an area which you your clients are,
4 apparently, sensitive about as they were in relation to
5 abattoirs in this country because they have, in effect,
6 given a long list in relation to 1989.
7
8 MR. RAMPTON: And a fairly long list in relation to 1983.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. What is the reference to the 1983
11 list?
12
13 MR. RAMPTON: Tab 52 volume 14. There is probably also a
14 reference to the pink volume but there is no need to bother
15 with that. It is a shorter list because they are the main
16 suppliers. They are not the suppliers of suppliers.
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There we are. That may be my conclusion at
19 the end of the day.
20
21 MR. MORRIS: If they are McDonald's US suppliers, it does
22 include Coope Montecillos on the list. We did make that
23 point before.
24
25 MR. RAMPTON: No. I have not really heard anything quite
26 so ----
27
28 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Leave that aside.
29
30 MR. RAMPTON: --- bizarre in the course of this whole case.
31 Mr. Morris must read, I would advise him to read before the
32 end of the case at least, the contents of file 14 when he
33 will realise that there is what I might say a wide range of
34 different kinds of documents within the volume. Some are
35 addressed to people in Coope Montecillos for an assurance
36 that the people in Costa Rica do not use beef taken from
37 the rainforest areas for Costa Rican purposes; some are
38 letters to people in Canada. There is within that list in
39 tab 52 of volume 14 a list, whether it is exhaustive I have
40 said I do not know -- I see there is a letter to somebody
41 in Brazil as well and Mr. Morris will base an allegation of
42 import from Brazil on that I have no doubt -- a list of the
43 First Plaintiffs' main United States suppliers is
44 incorporated into that list for that date. Some of them,
45 maybe most of them, are the same.
46
47 MR. MORRIS: There are only six US suppliers.
48
49 MR. RAMPTON: I said "named suppliers". Some of them, indeed it
50 may be all of them, I have not done a head count, are
51 exactly the same as they were in 1989. My Lord, I am not
52 concerned on the same grounds as I would be in this
53 country, particularly having regard to what is going on at
54 the moment, on grounds of security to protect the identity
55 of McDonald's suppliers in the United States in 1979. What
56 I am concerned about is that some employee of McDonald's
57 should not have to spend a week searching for information
58 which is, for all practical purposes, available there in
59 the disclosed documents.
60
