Timebase Pty Ltd v. Thomson Corporation, The

Filing 108

Minute Entry for proceedings held before Magistrate Judge Jeanne J. Graham: Motion Hearing held on 11/25/2009 re 100 MOTION for Leave to File A SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT filed by Timebase Pty Ltd. Order to be issued. (akl)

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Timebase Pty Ltd v. Thomson Corporation, The Doc. 108 Video Deposition of John Burke April 07, 2009 - 1 1 2 3 4 5 Plaintiff, 6 vs. TREK BICYCLE CORPORATION, Case No. 08-1010 7 8 Defendant/Third-Party Plaintiff, 9 10 11 vs GREG LeMOND, . ) Third-party Defendant. ____ 12 13 14 15 16 Video Deposition of JOHN BURKE Tuesday, April 7, 2009 9:31 a.m. at GASS WEBER MULLINS, LLC 309 North Water Street, Suite 700 Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Reported by Julie K. Lyle, RPR/RMR/CRR Dockets.Justia.com Video Deposition of John Burke April 07,2009 - 64 1 2 A Yes. And did -- and did you discuss how you intended to publicly announce the termination of the LeMond brand with counsel? MR. WEBER: answer. Q 3 4 5 I instruct you not to 6 7 The subject matter of discussions with counsel is within the scope of the privilege. MR. MADEL: Even though those 8 9 10 11 communications were specifically thought to be made public? MR. WEBER: instruction stand. MR. My objection and 12 13 14 15 16 MADEL: Okay. BY MR. MADEL: Q A Did you discuss your decision to have this presentation with any executives at Trek? Yes. Who? To my -- 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Q A to the best of my knowledge, I can't We did hire a public relations firm recall that. and so that was, I'm sure, discussed in those meetings. Q A ____ What was the name of the public relations firm? Public Strategies. Where are they located? - 25 Q Video Deposition of John Burke April 07,2009 1 - 66 Q Dan Bartlett who was part of the communications team for the George W. Bush White House? 2 3 4 A That's true. The Public Strategies relationship was presumably led by one person; is that right? Q 5 6 7 8 A No . ) Q No. There wasn't one relationship manager or one specific contact? A Well, if there is, I think you would probably say that it was Bill Colleti. 9 10 11 Q Was Mr. Colleti the person that you communicated with the most? 12 13 14 15 16 A Yes. What -- Q what did you ask the Public Strategies team to do? A I think what we asked the Public Strategies team to do is here's the decision that has been made, this is - - how should we best communicate it. We're not communication professionals, and we want to make sure that the story was properly presented. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A Q When you say "the story,'' do you mean Trek's side of the story? I would call it the story. Okay. Q So do you believe that in that Video Deposition o John Burke April 07, 2009 f -~ ____ ----~ - 69 _____ _ ~ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ____-___ _ 1 2 3 4 my journal that I reviewed yesterday, and in it it says, quote -- it was a conversation between Greg and I, and it says, "What you're telling me is the same thing that Sid," his lawyer in New York, "and my lawyer in Minnesota is telling me to do." And if you go back, time and time again, everybody was telling Greg the same thing and he would do something else. And I would 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 -r consider some of those episodes to be idiotic. do not consider Greg to be an idiot. I Q A How many meetings did you have with Public Strategies? I would guess amount. -- 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 A I do not recollect the exact I would probably say four or five. Q A Were these in person? Yes. Did they travel to Trek or did you travel to Austin? They traveled to Trek. And what was discussed at these meetings? Well, it was -MR WEBER: Just a second. Insofar as Q Q A the meetings included counsel, instruct you not to answer as they're within the attorney-client Video Deposition of John Burke - April 07, 2009 70 1 2 3 privilege. If you had meetings with Public Strategies outside the presence of counsel, you can answer. BY MR. MADEL: 4 5 Q A Well, let's Okay. Okay. -- let's break it up then. 6 7 Q A Do you recall who was at meeting one? 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 No. Do you recall who was at meeting two? Well, can I ask you a question? Sure Q A Q A I can recall some of the people at the meeting. Okay. And I would also say that I think counsel was at every meeting. Q A Q A Okay. Whose -- what counsel was at every 17 18 meeting? Bob Burns. Was Mr. Burns providing you legal advice at each one of these meetings? A 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q I would say yes. And each one of these meetings, the purpose of the meeting was devising the message that was going to be delivered at the presentation? Q A No. There were -- it was -- 1 2 3 4 MR. WEBER: Hold on just a second. Instruct you not to answer insofar as, in so doing, he's going to be disclosing attorney-client privileged information, including discussions with counsel as to legal strategy. 5 6 7 So instruct you not to answer. BY MR. MADEL: 8 9 10 11 Q A Can you answer the question without revealing attorney-client information? I don't think I can because Bob was at all the meetings - 12 13 Q A Well, I ' m asking you what the purpose of the meetings were. And the purpose of the meetings was to put together what the message would be and how the message would be delivered. 14 15 16 17 18 Q A And the message was going to be delivered at that April 8, 2008, presentation? It was delivered in a number of ways. one of the ways. That was 19 20 21 22 23 24 Q A What were the other ways? Letter to employees, letter to dealers, things like that. Q A -.__ I Press release? Sure. Video Deposition of John Burke April 07, 2009 - 72 2 3l 4 I A You must - - you must - - it -- you must understand, in the context, we were served with a I I I lawsuit ten days -- somewhere around ten days after my father's death. All right? We were -- 5 6, 7 same type of lawsuit we were given in 2004. right? All 8 9 It was a lawsuit that we found to be threatening, and we wanted to make sure that we were organized in how we put our message out. 10 11 12 Q A What did Trek do to Mr. LeMond within seven days of his mother's death? 13 14 15 I don't know. I -- to be honest with you, I didn't even know that his mother had died. Q I And did Mr. LeMond send you a note of condolence after your father passed away? 16 11 18 A I believe that he did. (Exhibit 135 was marked for identification.) 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A BY MR. MADEL: Q Exhibit 135 is a letter from Loren Brown, on behalf of Trek, to Mr. LeMond dated August 10, 2004, right? It is. And the first two paragraphs say, "My firm - Q __- ---- -- -- - - - - ---_ - - - - -- -- __ __ - Video Deposition of John Burke April 07,2009 -_ _ _ I _ - 80 _~___ ~~- 1 2 3 Q So you don't know that for certain? What your knowledge is regarding LeMond turning o f f his website came from Mr. Burns? 4 5 6 7 8 9 A That's correct. In addition to Trek employees and the media, was anybody else invited to your April 8, 2008, presentation? Q A Not to my knowledge. Were dealers invited? Not to my knowledge. Did any dealers attend? Not to my knowledge. Q A 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Q A If there would have been a dealer meeting there, perhaps some dealers might have been in the audience, but I'm not aware that there was. information. I'm sure we could get you that Q A Does a video of your presentation still exist on YouTube today? I do not know. All right. 20 21 22 23 24 Q A I haven't checked. Did you ever discuss the fact that your presentation was going to be videotaped and posted on YouTube? Q A We did. Video Deposition of John Burke April 07,2009 - 81 1 Q A Okay. When was that discussed? Probably at one of the meetings. With Public Strategies? Yes. And you approved that decision? I did. And does it surprise you to know that it's still on there today? Q A Q A Q 8 9 A No. Things on YouTube, I think, stay -- I mean, They stay on 10 11 12 13 14 that's not something we control. there for however long. Q And you know that the Trek website links to YouTube in order to show that presentation today? A I'm not aware of that. Is -- is that something that you approve of? 15 16 17 18 19 Q A I approve of the presentation, so yes. surprised that it's still on there. think it's a current topic. I'm I don't Q And you know that the Trek -- Trek website links 20 21 22 23 24 25 ___ . to LeMond's complaint as well as Trek's complaint in this lawsuit? A Yes. I think - - I think one of the important things is we kept, time and time again, trying to solve this - - fix this relationship. As I said before, I'm an Video Deposition of John Burke April 07,2009 - 117 I 1 2 31 If there's a different point of view that Greg has, that's Greg's responsibility to get that message out. I i I 1 Greg talks to the press 1 1 4r 51 6 quite often, and I'm not responsible for Greg getting his message out. Q Did you -- well, strike that. Do you see any responsibility on 7 8 9 behalf of Trek today in order to tell the whole story with respect to the LeMond relationship as opposed to just your side of the story? A 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 No. It's -- it is our responsibility to tell the Do I stand behind story from our point of view. this story and the accuracy of this story? Absolutely. (Exhibit 138 was marked for identification.) 17 18 BY MR. MADEL: Q A What is Exhibit 138? Exhibit 138 is a letter dated April 9th, 2008, to me from Jeff Jones. 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 12 And in this letter, Mr. Jones says, "I have read through your website, both Trek's complaint and Mr. LeMond's complaint regarding your dispute. As an avid cyclist and fan of cycling, I can't disagree with your position more." Video Deposition o John Burke April 07, 2009 f - 172 1 A This is an e-mail from Reid, and I cannot pronounce his last name, N-E-U-R-E-I-T-E-R, dated April 9th, 2008. Q A I'm going to go with Neureiter. Okay. Mr. Neureiter wrote, "I'm extremely disappointed at Trek's decision to terminate its relationship Q 8 9 with Greg LeMond. and many others." Mr. LeMond is a hero of mine 10 11 And he then asks, in the second-to-the-last -- or third-to-the-last 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 sentence here, "Why on earth would Trek continue to support an athlete who, in his role of patron of the tour, chased down and publicly punished one of the few active cyclists to speak publicly about Michele Ferrari and doping in sport?" Do you see that? A I do. Do you know who Michele Ferrari is? Q A 20 21 Yes. Who -- Q A who's Michele Ferrari? 22 23 24 25 Well, I don't think it's Michele. the wrong pronunciation. I think that's I think it's a doctor, sports medicine doctor in Italy. __ Q - And do you know if he was ever convicted by the

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