However, the plaintiff did not allege at all that he acted in bad faith in view of the lack of knowledge of additional engagements, and in any case he did not present evidence in this regard. In lieu of all this, the plaintiff petitioned that the court should be deemed to have held an exclusive franchise that had been violated, where Paragon sold products to or through third parties. This factual version of the plaintiff should be rejected.
More importantly, from the testimonies of the witnesses and the accompanying documents, it appears that Paragon did indeed act reasonably in its relationship with the plaintiff, when it informed him against any of its engagements with significant marketers or customers such as Shufersal, as well as other third parties.
The evidence shows that the plaintiff was aware of all of this, and that in real time he did not raise allegations against this conduct of Paragon.
It should be emphasized that although Mr. Nahmias, and later the partnership and the plaintiff, were the most significant marketer of Paragon in Israel, Paragon added and sold products to marketers and third parties, throughout the years, albeit on a smaller scale than those performed with the plaintiff.
All of these led me to the conclusion that the plaintiff's claims regarding the breach of exclusivity for the marketing of Paragon's products should be dismissed.
Shufersal chain
- The rejection of the plaintiff's claim that he is the exclusive concessionaire for the sale of Paragon products also omits, to a large extent, the basis of his claim, insofar as it relates to the commissions due to him for the sale of the products of the Paragon chain to Shufersal, directly and not through him.
- However, in view of the centrality of this argument in the framework of the claim (section 59 onwards), including in the framework of the remedies claimed, I have found it appropriate to address this issue briefly, separately.
- As stated, the plaintiff's claim was that in view of the desire of the Shufersal chain to start selling Paragon's products and being an exclusive marketer, a tripartite meeting was held between representatives of Shufersal and a representative of Paragon and him.
According to him, In the framework of The same It was agreed that Paragon would market its products to Shufersal directly, but that it would receive a credit or payment in the full amount of the commissions and profit it would have been entitled to if it had marketed the goods.
According to him, the said sum was supposed to entitle him to very high sums, at least 40% of each sum Same Shufersal paid Paragon for the goods; Rather, Because according to the plaintiff, Paragon had a narrow eye on him and she violated the agreement with him and began to supply goods directly to Shufersal, without transferring to him the commissions due to him in respect of this and while illegally enriching itself at his expense (see paragraphs 65-66 of the plaintiff's affidavit).
- Paragon, on the other hand, claimed that there was no connection between its sales to Shufersal or any other third party and the plaintiff, that his claims in this matter were merely asserted and were raised for the first time in the statement of claim, and that no evidence was presented by the plaintiff regarding the debt alleged in respect of this component of the claim (see paragraph 19 of Mr. Dershowitz's affidavit, paragraph 8 of Mr. Haberman's affidavit and Mr. Haberman's testimony at pp. 92, paras. 1-5 and 9-10 of the minutes of the hearing dated February 21, 2024).
- As with the entire relationship between the plaintiff and Paragon, with respect to the issue of the sale of the products to Shufersal, no agreement, meeting summary, correspondence or any other document was presented, which could have corroborated the plaintiff's claims regarding his entitlement to receive commissions for the sales to Shufersal.
If the parties had indeed reached agreements regarding the plaintiff's entitlement to commissions from Paragon's direct sales to Shufersal, it would have been expected that these agreements would be accompanied by details of the scope of sales, the rate of commissions, the rating of commissions, and the like. However, none of these were presented.