"The suppliers of the goods, the growers, are not obligated to supply products to the company and can decide not to use its services, without any warning, and therefore the company sees itself as a service provider, and among other things, tries to pay the farmers as early as possible, so that within 21 days of receiving the goods at Agrexco - the grower is paid 80% of his share in return, and the rest is paid after receiving the funds from the customer.On average, within about 45 days.This period of time, between the payment to the grower and the receipt of the funds from the customer, requires the company to take financing from banks.
Some agricultural commodity suppliers market all their produce through the company.These growers benefit from incentives paid by Agrexco .The abandonment rates of suppliers of agricultural produce are very low, according to information provided by the company's management."
- The compilation indicates that already at the relevant time of the years 2007-2008, it was clear and known that the engagement with the growers was based on historical loyalty and not on an enforceable contractual obligation. This fact has a direct bearing on the examination of the alleged factual causal connection. As stated, even if there were flaws in the accounting handling of payments to growers and that their registration as an asset was improper, this in itself does not lead to the conclusion that the company's collapse would necessarily have occurred already in those years. From the evidence heard before me, it appears that the event that actually served as a real catalyst for the company's collapse in 2011 was the decision of the growers to terminate their engagement with the state and the company (inter alia, in the report on pp. 22-23, 26, 252-253, 269 of the investigator's report (Appendix 1 to the defendant's affidavits); Appendix 1 to the investigator's report: a request for a stay of proceedings order submitted to the Tel Aviv District Court, at p. 13). This decision directly harmed the company's ability to ensure the supply of produce in the required quantities, and in any case undermined the foundations of its activity. In these circumstances, it is more reasonable to determine that even in retrospect, the factor that could have preceded the date of the collapse is not limited to the accounting record itself, but rather to the scenario of termination of engagement on the part of the growers, as actually occurred.
- Important for our purposes are the statements raised in the Barlev Opinion regarding the State's obligation regarding the issuance of the bonds, according to which it appears that the State closely controlled the process of issuing Agrexco's bonds; and the bondholders relied on the strength and support of the state as a stabilizing factor that guarantees the repayment of the debt, which was officially reflected in the company's credit rating (Appendix 15 to the defendants' affidavits, at p. 19 of Barlev's opinion):
"The State's Obligation Regarding the Issuance of Bonds