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Mclibel - Burger Culture on Trial Pb

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McLibel is an account of the longest trial in British legal history - McDonald's Restaurants v Morris & Steel. The story is in every way a David and Goliath story - two penniless lay people are pitted against the Dean of British libel lawyers backed by the limitless coffers of a major international company. Despite the overwhelming odds against them, both in terms of legal talent and legal obstacles, the defendants do a creditable job of holding their own.

This book offers an interesting British counterpoint to Harr's A Civil Action. Both books describe major legal struggles between the Haves and the Have-nots and in both cases the outcome represents less than a clear victory for either side. McLibel also offers an interesting critique of British libel law, the limitations on free speech in Britain, "ownership" of the law, manipulation of the legal system by the powerful, and the role of the judge.

It also offers Big Business a salutary lesson - not every apprent pushover is going to play dead the moment litigation is threatened. When it comes to counting the most costly legal mistakes ever, this case must rank somewhere near the top of the list. The case turned into a legal quagmire that McDonalds found it impossible to extricate itself from. Whatever consolation the company may have found in the verdict, this was a pyrrhic victory and an undoubted public relations disaster.

The Mcdonalds Corporation has used the threat of litigation to protect both its logos and also its reputation. This is an example in which the threat of legal action came unstuck. Two British enviromentalists had handed out material which it was later found out defamed the McDonalds corporation. Defamation action was threatened unless the enviromentalists recanted. This they refused to do and McDonalds issued a writ suggesting that they had been libeled.

It was at this point that McDonalds made a serious legal error in making some allegations against the enviromentalists. This led to a counter suite for defamation which was run at the same time. The problem for McDonalds was that they had to lead evidence to prove their case. Normally in a defamation case it would be up to the defendant to do so. As the two enviromentalists were both broke they would not have been able to do so. However McDonalds by their tactical mistake forced themselves to provide evidence to back up their claims. The two enviromentalists were able to cross examine the various McDonalds witnesses to provide evidence for their claims.

As a result the case went on for so long that it became Britain's longest ever case. The two enviromentalists had a year to learn how to cross examine and were able to elicit some evidence that was unflattering McDonalds.

In these sorts of cases costs of litigation are nominally recoverable from the losing side. However as the two enviromentalists had no money any cost order against them was without value. This led to a incredibly long and expensive case which ended up bleeding McDonalds with the unfortunate side effect that the two enviromentalists were able to milk it for all it was worth to attack the reputation of McDonalds. From the point of view of the firm a total disaster... The decision to litigate had been a disaster.

The book is okay but leaden at times, the film that was released of the event is probably a bit more interesing.

An important book regarding the power of corporations, and the abuse of the environment. We Americans are fortunate that we do not have England's libel laws where corporations like McDonalds do not hesitate to use the law to squelch free speech. This is a fascinating book that follows the longest civil trial in British history. The author is able to summarize the trial without getting bogged down in the mass of testimony that was presented. The book's downside is that the author makes lengthy asides to preach on environmental issues. I share his concerns, but I bought the book to read about the specific issue of the trial itself.

It all began with a pamphlet entitled "What's Wrong with McDonald's?" that led to the longest trial in British history.
The trial was a David vs. Goliath - five members of London Greenpeace against McDonalds.
Accused by McDonalds of libel, two activists held their ground and proceeded with the trial. The activists believed that McDonalds exploited children, depressed wages, leveled South and Central American rain forests and subjected its cattle and chicken to mass slaughters.
Without benefit of a lawyer or funds from legal aid, Helen Steel and Dave Morris acted as their own attorneys in facing McDonalds' legal teams. British libel law required that Steel and Morris prove the accuracy of virtually every statement made in the flyer.
Unfortunately, the judge found that Helen and Dave had not proved the allegations against McDonald's. But they had shown that McDonald's does exploit children with their advertising, falsely advertised their food as nutritious and are culpably responsible for cruelty to animals reared for their products. In the end, the two were ordered to pay but McDonald's dropped the claim and left with a very tarnished image.

This book really made me consider the notion of "progress" and the monstrous reality of rampant capitalist enterprise. It is always easy to point out maniacal campaigns for fiscal "rewards" of the world's multi-national companies and whinge in rather general ways. "McLibel" makes some general comments about globalisation, but uses the courageous courtcase involving Steel and Morris against McDonald's to illustrate these concerns. I feel that the London Greenpeace movement probably should have verified factual evidence BEFORE putting out a "fact sheet" that has taken five years to do this retrospectively. I have so much admiration for Steel and Morris and wish that it was possible to just phone them and thank them personally for their efforts and sacrifice of time, lifestyle and relationships. It is encouraging to read, after so much bad news presented by Vidal, that there are thousands of dissident groups speaking back to the corporate world. I am moved to become involved. I think Vidal's style of writing was more convincing in the presentation of factual information, than in his proselytising sections and his presentations of character. Some characterisations were as Dickensian as his Chapter introductory quotations. However, I think this is an essential read and I plan on using this text in the class room as a companion read to the Australian documentary about the same events.

The best known clown in the world is Ronald McDonald and that is sad. The defendants were denied legal aid and their right to a jury but after a long saga they won out. Very inspiring!

McLibel documents the civil trial of two activists in England who were sued by McDonalds for giving out flyers (that they were not even the authors of) outside a McDonalds in London. Instead of cowering down and shutting up they decided to fight a multimillion dollar corporate legal machine. Besides covering the trial proceedings it goes over much of the dirty tactics that were used against the two activists, including sending undercover operatives into their group and following them everywhere they went. So McDonalds is not just a typical unethical corporation, they actually go so far as to be an Orwellian enemy of free speech. McLibel also goes over the truth that was included in the flyer in question. Health destroying food, worker exploitation, environment destruction and pollution, helping to destroy and homogenize cultures, etc.

Before reading this book, I was under the silly impression that the British legal system, from which ours evolved, was closer to us than it evidently is. It is a reminder that we've come a long way in the development of jurisprudence since Declaring our Independence.

McLibel is a true tale of once upon a time, not so very long ago (1990 - 1997) when the Davids took on a Goliath (Ronald McDonald and his Big Bad Corporation) in not-so-Merry-Old England. Two unemployed activists had distributed leaflets, (which they neither wrote nor produced,) that had the audacity to criticize the corporate giant. The two, who were unable to afford attorneys, were put to a Kafka-esque Kangaroo (with apologies to residents of Australia) Court trial, the likes of which, were it to appear on Saturday Night Live, would be condemned as Theatre of the Absurd.

The author describes the protracted trial: "Like the interminable case of _Jarndyce v. Jarndyce_ in Charles Dickens' *Bleak House,* _McDonald's Corporation and McDonald's Restaurants Ltd. vs. Helen Marie Steel and David Morris_ (popularly known as the McLibel case) drone(d) on in claustrophobic isolation."

One of the most striking things about McLibel, to the American sensibility, is the arcane, archaic, bizarre, Byzantine Quagmire of British libel law. The book is sometimes difficult to digest. There are no footnotes, endnotes, annotations, or other direct attribution of sources. I was disappointed that the Writ and other pleadings (actual legal papers which are the foundation of a lawsuit,) were not included in the Appendix. A reproduction of the offending leaflet would also have been helpful. The author, British "Environmental Journalist" John Vidal (Hey! Is he related to Gore Vidal?) frequently plagues the reader with his own protracted political polemics. But it is, nonetheless, enriched food for thought.

Do you want fries with that? Here's an interesting bit of trivia included in the book: Ray Kroc, founding force behind McDonald's as we know it, was in the same World War I ambulance driving company as Walt Disney.