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McDonald’s first sought action against ‘the McLibel two’ over the leaflet in 1990. In fact, the company initially issued libel writs against five activists but three backed down and apologized. For Steel and Morris, however, the threat of legal action also represented an opportunity. The trial could, and indeed did, provide a much larger platform for their views than they would ever have been given standing outside McDonald’s restaurants distributing pamphlets.

As it turned out, the trial became the longest in English history, with a staggering total of 313 days in court. And as the trial developed, so too did the media interest. Pretty soon, millions of people knew exactly what was being discussed in that courtroom. Every single statement made in the original pamphlet was discussed and dissected not only in court, but in news studios around the world. In No Logo, Naomi Klein highlights the protracted nature of the case:

With 180 witnesses called to the stand, the company endured humiliation after humiliation as the court heard stories of food poisoning, failure to pay legal overtime, bogus recycling claims and corporate spies sent to infiltrate the ranks of London Greenpeace. In one particularly telling incident, McDonald’s executives were challenged on the company’s claim that it serves ‘nutritious food’: David Green, senior vice president of marketing, expressed his opinion that Coca-Cola is nutritious because it is ‘providing water, and I think that is part of a balanced diet.’

Whichever side of the fence they sat, most commentators agreed on one thing: the longer the trial went on, the more damaging it was for McDonald’s public image. In any case, the actual facts of the case were too complicated for most observers to be able to understand clearly – the judge’s verdict document was over 1,000 pages long.

When the verdict was finally announced on 19 June 1997, McDonald’s were able to claim victory as Steel and Morris were ordered to pay damages. The allegations in the pamphlet linking McDonald’s to food poisoning, cancer and third-world poverty were deemed by the judge as unsupportable.

However, McDonald’s was not able to undo the damage caused by the lengthy trial. On 20 June 1997, the Guardian newspaper observed that: ‘Not since Pyrrhus has a victor emerged so bedraggled.’ Indeed, although Morris and Steel were ordered to pay £60,000, this was a low price compared to that which McDonald’s were paying in terms of negative PR (not to mention legal fees).

For one thing, the original pamphlet – What’s wrong with McDonald’s – had now become a cult collector’s item, with 3 million copies in circulation across the UK. Then there was the McSpotlight website, which published all 20,000 pages of the court transcript. The damage was further prolonged through the publication of John Vidal’s widely acclaimed book, McLibel: Burger Culture on Trial. There were numerous TV programmes focusing on the trial, such as Channel 4’s three-hour dramatization, McLibel.

So while McDonald’s won in court, they lost the media battle. As Naomi Klein points out:

For Helen Steel, Dave Morris and their supporters, McLibel was never solely about winning in court – it was about using the courts to win over the public. [...] Standing outside their neighbourhood McDonald’s in North London on a Saturday afternoon, Steel and Morris could barely keep up with the demand for ‘What’s wrong with McDonald’s?’ the leaflet that started it all.

In the Guardian, the UK newspaper that covered the trial from day one, the consequences were also seen to stretch beyond the four walls of the courtroom:

Consider the cost of this pyrrhic victory. Firstly, the judge upheld several important charges made by the campaigners against the company [...] But much more serious was the wide support which the McLibel Two received from the World’s media in this epic battle between ‘the small fries and the burger giant.’ [...] Publicly, McDonald’s has remained tight-lipped over its pursuit