Day 285 - 23 Oct 96 - Page 06

     
     1        Homen (?), 12th February 1993, in response to the
     2        criticisms made by, McDonald's say, Prince Phillip about
     3        responsibility for the rainforest destruction.  They
     4        said: "McDonald's worldwide is not involved in any manner
     5        in dealing with rainforests or their removal or in buying
     6        beef as a result of cattle that have been grazing in areas
     7        that formerly were rainforests".  Which is untrue and they
     8        knew it was untrue.  That was a lie to, effectively,
     9        Prince Phillip to try and get him to back down.
    10
    11        So the point I am making, and I will refer to a couple of
    12        other documents that are in the World Wildlife Fund
    13        correspondence, is that they had a bad reputation, not
    14        just in the ordinary public but at the highest level, and
    15        they tried to counter it with lying.
    16
    17        That last letter was volume 16, pink volume 16, tab 3, we
    18        hope.  Sorry, that was the BBC one, on page 2 of that.
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Do not bother with the World Wildlife one,
         because I will find that fairly quickly.  I am fairly well
    22        acquainted with what went on there.
    23
    24   MR. MORRIS:   Right.  Then the solicitors for McDonald's...
    25        And these are not off-the-cuff remarks by, you know,
    26        various officials.  We are talking about presidents and
    27        solicitors acting on behalf of the corporation in these
    28        matters.  The solicitors for McDonald's Corporation wrote
    29        to Veggies on 8th October 1987 about this very document
    30        that we are arguing about today, saying:  "On our client's
    31        behalf neither their USA nor Canadian companies or any
    32        other company in their group has used or does use meat
    33        which comes from cattle reared in former rainforests."
    34
    35        That will either be behind....
    36
    37   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Do not bother with that either.  I can find
    38        that easily because I have got references to that
    39        elsewhere.
    40
    MS. STEEL:   It is actually document 208 in the original list
    42        of defendants' documents.
    43
    44   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.
    45
    46   MR. MORRIS:   Then - I have not got the reference, but I
    47        remember it anyway - the same or words to similar effect
    48        put into a public Mcfact sheet which was sent to the press
    49        not through the stores.  That was the subject, if you
    50        remember, of the Civil Evidence Act statement of Laura
    51        Waters.  That was 1992 after the pleadings in this case
    52        were served, which was another public lie. 
    53
    54        So those are just illustrative of the fact that McDonald's
    55        had a poor reputation on the subject such that the husband
    56        of the Queen of England and the BBC should associate them
    57        with destruction of rainforests and, secondly, and members
    58        of the public, before the fact sheet was even written and
    59        that McDonald's response was to lie their way out of the
    60        situation.