The following is recent press coverage related to the appeal of an earlier court ruling which protected the right of Lubicon supporters to boycott Daishowa.

Note Daishowa spokesperson Tom Cochran's statement that Daishowa "still has some concerns that people are allowed to demonstrate..."

Canadians will have to decide whether they want to live in a society that is sympathetic to Daishowa's concerns.

Friends of the Lubicon

Tuesday, 15 June 1999

Peace River Record-Gazette

Daishowa Inc. Builds Case in 27 Binders, Files Boycott Appeal

By DEB GUERETTE

RECORD-GAZETTE STAFF

Daishowa Inc. has filed its appeal of an Ontario court ruling that upheld the right of an Aboriginal support group to carry out a boycott campaign.

The Ontario based paper manufacturing company launched a lawsuit against the Friends of the Lubicon in 1995. After 28 days of court proceedings concluded in December of 1997, Justice P. MacPherson ruled in March of 1998, that, with some altered wording, the Friends could continue the boycott that Daishowa has estimate cost it up to $20 million in lost business.

Immediately after the 1998 ruling Daishowa said it would appeal. Appeal documents were sent to court the first week of June, corporate communications manager Tom Cochrane told the Record-Gazette, last week. "All the papers are filed now," he said Thursday.

Daishowa "still has some concerns that people are allowed to demonstrate and threaten to boycott our customers," Cochrane said, adding "to a great degree this is a matter of principle. We don't think it is right and our lawyers don't think it is valid."

Company lawyers will "use case law... to argue that the judge made the wrong decision."

The judge "doesn't have the right to overturn all of that procedure," Cochrane said, noting the company "never questioned the right" of groups to boycott it, but are "saying it is not right to carry out secondary pickets and boycotts of our customers."

Friends of the Lubicon undertook the boycott campaign to pressure Peace River based Daishowa-Marubeni International to commit to not harvest or use timber from claimed Lubicon traditional territory until the band achieves a land settlement.

After the May ruling, and some further discussions between the three parties, DMI publicly stated in would not use timber from the disputed territory.

Friends of the Lubicon spokesman Kevin Thomas says the group is concerned about Daishowa's intentions.

"I have no idea why a company would pursue expensive legal action for the sake of principle, so the question is why. Do they have some other agenda," Thomas said from his Toronto home Friday.

The Friends also have a motion before the courts to dismiss Daishowa's appeal action, he said.

"We want to push forward that motion. There is no boycott and therefore we think it is ludicrous to shut down a boycott that doesn't exist," he said. The Friends have sixty days to put together a statement of defense to the appeal, Thomas said, noting that Daishowa filed "27 books of stuff, (legal) material and transcripts of their witnesses."

Sierra Legal Defense Fund lawyers will likely act for the Friends again, Thomas said. "We have done some fundraising for legal expenses, (and hopefully) expenses on an appeal should not be as high," as the lawsuit trial expenses.

Defending itself from Daishowa's lawsuit would have cost the Friends about $400,000 if legal work was not provided by the legal defense fund, Thomas said.

Cochrane has declined to reveal how much the lawsuit cost Daishowa. Despite the end of the boycott, Daishowa has not won back its lost customers, Cochrane said.

Business is "still terrible. We never really recovered what we lost," he said.

The lawsuit ruling saw the Friends ordered to pay Daishowa one dollar for damages for using terms like "genocide" in their boycott literature. When the two sides appeared in court again to argue costs, Daishowa was ordered to pay the Friends one dollar for its legal expenses.

A hearing date for the appeal won't likely be set until September, Cochrane said.

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