Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy - Eamon Javers [74]
In this case, Mars aimed its plan at the European legislators who would be in a position to keep Spillers out of Nestlé’s hands. First, Mars planned to convince the countries of the European Economic Area (EEA) that the acquisition by Nestlé would be bad for consumers. The idea was to use Mars’s Pedigree dog food division to pull together factual and historical information to highlight inaccuracies in the material that Nestlé submitted to European bureaucrats. “The information would highlight Nestlé’s history of job cuts or consolidation after mergers,” noted Beckett Brown.
Next, Mars would spur seemingly independent third parties to help thwart the conclusion of Nestlé and Dalgety’s deal. Beckett Brown noted that the plan called for Mars lobbyists to provide European politicians with negative talking points and tabloid newspapers with negative headlines about the deal. “BBI has obtained a copy of this plan,” the report noted helpfully.
“To a degree, Mars is willing to be criticized, albeit lightly, by their own third-party people,” noted Beckett Brown. “For example, they will argue that a Pedigree/Nestlé duopoly would dominate pet-food markets within the EEA and would hurt suppliers and manufacturers as well as consumers.” That was an important discovery, and Beckett Brown didn’t lose the opportunity to emphasize the point in its report: “It could be significant that Mars is willing to suffer criticism over the Nestlé/Dalgety acquisition.”
In the coming months, Beckett Brown would prowl ever deeper into the secrets of Mars. Through its contact at Science Security Associates, it continued to monitor phone calls going out of the Mars headquarters, tracing down the identities of people and firms that the Mars executives were calling.
But the internal security at Mars proved daunting. By spring, Science Security Associates sent a note asking for payment on an invoice relating to James Kiss of the Hawthorn Group and Ed Stegemann, the general counsel of Mars. The subcontractor explained (in mangled grammar) that he wasn’t able to come up with all the phone records Ward wanted. “It appears that the ‘security blocks’ which are in place are such that my person can not overcome what is in place,” he wrote. “If you get any other thoughts reference to this I might attempt for you do let me know.” The firm submitted an invoice for $2,455 for the work already completed. “If you have any comments reference to the invoice do understand that the larger portion of it has been my expenses on this which, as you know, can run expensive,” the note read.
Beckett Brown was becoming so closely involved with Nestlé’s business that Nestlé asked Tim Ward to fill out a nondisclosure form. In the legalese typical of such documents, Nestlé wrote to Ward, “You will have access to information which is confidential and proprietary to Nestlé, including but not limited to plans and future activities of Nestlé, marketing plans and strategies, business plans and information, and new product developments…. Because of the highly competitive nature of the food industry, policies and procedures have been established by Nestlé to protect its Confidential Information.” Ward signed the paper.*
It is worth pausing here to note just how strange all this was. After all, Nestlé was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and deploying high-end crisis communicators, veteran Secret Service agents, and former law enforcement officials to find out what had happened to its new chocolate ball. But the chocolate industry has been secretive for generations. In fact, the famous children’s book by Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,