McLibel Case - Facts

Facts

Beginning in 1986, "London Greenpeace", a small environmental campaigning group (not to be confused with the larger Greenpeace International organisation, which they declined to join as they saw it being too "centralised and mainstream for their tastes"), distributed a pamphlet entitled What’s wrong with McDonald’s: Everything they don’t want you to know.

This publication made a number of allegations against McDonald's. The leading allegations were that McDonald's:

• is complicit in Third World starvation;
• buys from greedy rulers and elites and practices economic imperialism;
• wastes vast quantities of grain and water;
• destroys rainforests with poisons and colonial invasions;
• sells unhealthy, addictive junk food;
• alters its food with artificial chemistry;
• exploits children with its advertising;
• is responsible for torture and murder of animals;
• poisons customers with contaminated meat;
• exploits its workers and bans unions;
• hides its malfeasance.

It was later noted that the reach of the campaign was tiny compared with the level of ensuing controversy. In 1989, McDonald's responded to the publication of the leaflet by engaging private agents to infiltrate London Greenpeace in order to gather evidence. Along with attending meetings, those agents broke into their offices and stole documents. In 1990, McDonald's brought libel proceedings against five London Greenpeace supporters, Paul Gravett, Andrew Clarke and Jonathan O'Farrell, as well as Steel and Morris, for distributing the pamphlet on the streets of London. This case followed past instances in which McDonald's threatened to sue more than fifty organisations for libel, including Channel 4 television and several major publications. In all such cases, the media outlets settled, and offered apologies for the alleged libel.

Under English law, the burden of proving (on balance of probability) the literal truth of every disparaging statement is on the defendant. This can be an expensive and time-consuming process. Three of the charged individuals (Gravett, Clarke and O'Farrell) chose to apologise as requested by McDonald's. Steel and Morris, however, chose to defend the case.

The two were denied Legal Aid, as was policy for libel cases, despite having very limited income. Thus, they had to represent themselves, though they received significant pro bono assistance. Steel and Morris called 180 witnesses, seeking to prove their assertions about food poisoning, unpaid overtime, misleading claims about how much McDonald's recycled, and "corporate spies sent to infiltrate the ranks of London Greenpeace". McDonald's spent several million pounds, while Steel and Morris spent £30,000; this disparity in funds meant Steel and Morris were not able to call all the witnesses they wanted, especially witnesses from South America who were intended to support their claims about McDonalds' activities in that continent's rain forests.

In its libel allegation, McDonald's asserted that all claims in the pamphlet were false. They found it difficult to support this position despite the indirectness of some of the claims. The case eventually became a media circus. McDonald's executives, including Ray Cesca, took the stand to be questioned by the defendants.

In June 1995, McDonald's offered to settle the case (which "was coming up to its anniversary in court") by donating a large sum of money to a charity chosen by the two. They further specified that they would drop the case if Steel and Morris agreed to "stop criticising McDonald's". Steel and Morris secretly recorded the meeting; McDonald's said the pair could criticise McDonald's privately to friends but must cease talking to the media or distributing leaflets. Steel and Morris wrote a letter in response saying they would agree to the terms if McDonald's ceased advertising its products and instead only recommended the restaurant privately to friends.