APPENDIX 41
Letter from the Corporate Affairs Director
Imperial Tobacco Group Plc, to the Clerk of the Committee (TB
13F)
Thank you for your letter to Gareth Davis dated
17 February by which the Committee requested copies of our company
documents scanned in preparation for the discovery process in
the litigation against Imperial and Gallaher that was abandoned
in February 1999. In my letter to you dated 10 January I explained
that the documents contained in the lists served in the litigation
amount in total to approximately 210,000 pages.
As we have shown, we wish to co-operate with
the Committee and to assist with its enquiry. However, given the
huge volume of material concerned, we do not understand how having
copies of these documents will assist the Committee in the preparation
of its report. We believe it would take many man-years to read
our documents alone. Based upon comments made by members of the
Committee during the enquiry, we are concerned that the Committee
intends simply to make our documents publicly available.
In the circumstances, please would the Committee
explain what its intentions are and how the supply of our documents
would assist the Committee.
25 February 2000
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