McDonald's Closes Down All Stores In Bolivia

McSpotlight note:

McDonald's Bolivian stores closed down permanently on Saturday 29th November. This is a result of the corporation's global restructuring plan
in which they plan to pull out of at least 7 other countries too.

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McDonald's closing 13 restaurants in Denmark

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - McDonald's Denmark said Monday it will close 13 Danish restaurants and lay off 371 workers, part of the company's global
restructuring plan.

Last month, McDonald's Corp., based in Oak Brook, Illinois, said it would close 175 restaurants in 10 countries, and restructure or cease operations in seven
Middle Eastern and Latin American nations, eliminating 600 jobs.

"This is part of the global restructuring," company spokesman Kristian Scheef Madsen said. The company didn't say when the closings in Denmark would start.

McDonald's Denmark chose to close restaurants that were too small to be
profitable or were no longer strategically located because of changes in traffic patterns.

The local branch of McDonald's said it was not ceasing its operations in
Denmark. It is opening a restaurant this month in Vejle, in western Denmark. Another was opened on the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm in June.

McDonald's entered entered the Danish market in 1980 and operates 96
restaurants in this Scandinavian country of 5.3 million. After the layoffs, the company will employ 3,500 workers.

McDonald's currently operates in 121 countries and has 30,000 restaurants
worldwide, less than half of them in the United States

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McDonald's tries to spit out obesity lawsuit
By Gail Appleson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - McDonald's, trying to kill a controversial lawsuit blaming it for youth obesity, has said that people know that gobbling up too many Big Macs and fries will make them fat.

During the first court hearing in the highly publicised case, a lawyer for the
fast-food chain urged a federal judge to dismiss the suit because restaurants
are not legally required to tell consumers what they already know. Although other suits have been filed over the issue, lawyers said this is the only one that is actively being litigated.

U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet said he would decide later whether to dismiss the suit. "The plaintiffs' lawsuit asks the court to abandon common knowledge, common sense," Bradley Lerman, a lawyer representing McDonald's said on Wednesday.

He said that the law does not require that restaurants warn customers of the
"universally understood" fact that common foods contain fat, salt, sugar,
cholesterol and other basic ingredients. Lerman said that reasonable people
know what products are in hamburgers and fries and what excessive eating of those products does to one's waistline over a prolonged period.

"People don't wake up one day thin then wake up the next day and are obese," he said.

The suit, argued Lerman, does not allege that McDonald's products are defective or contaminated but instead tries to hold the company responsible for telling people something that is commonly understood. He said that McDonald's has never billed their Big Macs or fried foods
as being as low in calories as a "spinach salad."

Oakbrook, Illinois-based McDonald's issued a statement after the hearing saying that choices available at its restaurants and the nutrition information it provides demonstrates that the lawsuit's allegations are unfair. For example, among its lower calorie items is a meatless sandwich called a McVeggie Burger.

"With most meals eaten at home, and about 900,000 dining options available to American consumers every day, McDonald's is no more responsible for an individual's overall diet and lifestyle choices than any other food destination, whether it's your own kitchen, local restaurant or grocery store," the company said.

However Samuel Hirsch, the lawyer who filed the suit, alleged that McDonald's has deliberately tried to mislead the public into thinking Big Macs and other products are nutritious. He said that while the chain might post nutritional information in its restaurants the information is often difficult to understand and placed in hard-to-read locations.

"It's a serious lawsuit with serious issues," he said. "They have deliberately withheld information."

The suit is one of four cases filed against McDonald's and other fast food chains over the obesity issue. However two cases have been dismissed and another is dormant.

The current action, which seeks unspecified damages, was brought on
behalf of overweight children who consumed foods at two McDonald's
located in the Bronx. One of the plaintiffs is a 14-year-old girl who is 4 foot 10
inches tall and weighs 170 pounds.

It seeks class action status to represent other children throughout New York State.

The plaintiffs allege that the McDonald's restaurants violated New York State's consumer fraud statutes by failing to adequately disclose the ingredients in some of the foods and the possible health effects caused by eating them.