(i) Leibowitz was of the opinion, and this is also evident from his letter to the Commissioner of Petroleum Affairs dated October 28, 2010, that the application to transfer the drilling rights from ACC to Shemen should be examined in light of the original criteria and not in light of the new criteria (P/285);
(j) In December 2010, Shemen hired the services of Adv. Caspi to handle the request for the transfer of the drilling rights, with the intention that Shemen would not be required to meet the new criteria. In parallel with hiring the services of Adv. Caspi, Ben-Zaken began to work to convince the relevant figures in the Ministry of Infrastructures that the new criteria should not apply to Shemen;
(k) Mimran, who, in addition to his role as Petroleum Commissioner at the Ministry of Energy, also served as the person in charge of the activities of the professional committee, which brings its recommendations to the Petroleum Council, sent a letter to Adv. Caspi on January 10, 2011, in which he clarified that the application to transfer the drilling rights to Shemen must include all the required details about the Petroleum Law and its regulations, as well as the details included in the announcement of the Commissioner of Petroleum Affairs dated March 9, 2010. In practice, Mimran's announcement clarified that in order for the request to transfer the drilling rights to be approved, Shemen must meet the new criteria. In his testimony, Mimran clarified the rationale behind his position: "... That a request for the transfer of rights is also required by the applicants' page under the conditions of the Director-General, and what does this mean? More specifically, the reference is in the specific case to economic ability. In other words, even someone who submitted and received an application, such as ICC, had an oil license, if it wishes to transfer some or all of its rights to another company, it will be required, we will demand that the entire file be opened and re-examined, according to new criteria that we have formulated, which have been renewed over time, we will be asked to re-examine compliance with the new criteria. In other words, the process, the date, the determining date is not the date of receipt of the original license, but also the date of the transfer of rights. It was an opportunity for us to arrange systems, to make sure that everything was done according to the new procedures" (Prov. p. 290, s. 19);