Day 024 - 15 Sep 94 - Page 16
1 Q. Right. So, basically, you were trying to keep things keep
2 co-operative?
3 A. Yes. As an enforcement matter, when we are dealing
4 with an entire industry that has problems, we did not
5 believe that it was wise, efficient and in the public
6 interest to set about suing individual companies to obtain
7 the change where a whole industry is, in essence,
8 violating the law. We instead, with this industry, with
9 the fastfood -- with the airline industry, with the
10 balance of the marketing industry that were marketing
11 products as environmentally sound, and other areas as well
12 -- we felt the best mechanism was to educate the
13 businesses as to our concerns and the ways we felt the law
14 had been violated, then requesting them to make the
15 changes. "Requesting them" may be a soft peddling way of
16 saying "threatening", but, in essence, we were trying to
17 engender a co-operative spirit, without saying: "If you
18 do not do this, we will sue you". That specific threat is
19 not made in this letter.
20
21 Q. But would that have been the position if they had not gone
22 ahead?
23 A. I do not see a choice. I think if we advise a company
24 they are violating a law and the company tells us to go
25 jump in the lake, that, as a matter of enforcement,
26 necessity and credibility with every company in the
27 future, we must do that. We have done that with major
28 companies. We sued the Quaker Oats company when Quaker
29 Oats refused to change its labelling and advertising
30 practices that linked consumption of oat meal with
31 production of heart disease, for instance.
32
33 Q. Just one question on the letter: This is written on your
34 behalf as well, I think, but it is actually a letter from
35 the California Department of Justice. It mentions ten
36 other states. Could you just give a bit of background as
37 to how the other states became involved in this?
38 A. It was known at the time by most members of the
39 industry that the states were working co-operatively in a
40 multistate ----.
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: May I just ask you, can you remember who
43 actually drafted the letter dated 6th May 1986 which is
44 signed by the Attorney Generals themselves of California
45 and Texas?
46 A. In terms of absolute memory, your Lordship, I cannot.
47 I can tell you how it must have occurred, with the
48 certainty being 100 per cent that it would have occurred
49 here.
50
51 As a practice, when two or more states are working
52 co-operatively, each of those states under our system have
53 actual sovereign interests, have different enforcement
54 interests. Any time that a letter went out on behalf of
55 two states, whether it was signed by one individual, as is
56 the case with the June 3 letter signed by Mr. Sheldon but
57 on behalf of the two states, or this letter that is, in
58 fact, signed by both the Attorneys General of California
59 and Texas, it would have been written and reviewed by
60 officials within both offices.
