In our case, in the statement of claim that she filed with the District Court, Himanuta did not petition for compensation for harm to her reliance interest by virtue of Section 12 Law The Contracts. Indeed, it appears that our case is not a typical case, of a business negotiation that did not mature into a contract due to the withdrawal of one of the parties to the negotiations, while harming the reliance interest of the other party. Thus, in the normal state of affairs, the harm to the reliance interest due to a lack of good faith in the negotiations is expressed, essentially, in the expenses incurred in the framework of the negotiations and in the loss of alternative business opportunities (see: Peaceful and Plant, at pp. 127-135). On the other hand, in the present case, we are not dealing with negotiations for the conclusion of a typical business contract, but rather with negotiations for a compromise intended to make a pending legal proceeding between the parties redundant (which he ordered, as we know in retrospect, in a fraudulent transaction in which the JNF was deceived by a third party, which is not the Patriarchate). At the same time, there is no relevance in our case to the loss of alternative business opportunities; The significance of the Patriarchate's withdrawal from the negotiations is that the dispute between the parties will not be settled by compromise, but will be decided by a court ruling. In the circumstances at hand, I am of the opinion that it is increasingly difficult to award compensation for lack of good faith on the part of the Patriarchate due to its withdrawal from the negotiations; It seems that it is not for nothing that Himanuta refrained from claiming compensation due to a violation of its reliance interest.
- In light of all this, I do not believe that the withdrawal of the Patriarchate from the negotiations amounts to bad faith in its meaning In the section 12 Law The ContractsAll the more so - in a manner that justifies the award of subsistence compensation, an option that is reserved for exceptional cases only; And I will emphasize at the end what is mentioned Peaceful and Plant In their book:
In the pre-contractual stage, each party to the negotiations must act in good faith, but it is not obligated to enter into a contract that it does not want. The negotiation stage is, by its very nature, a stage in which the parties' wishes have not yet been finalized. Granting positive compensation for the breach of the duty to act in good faith at this stage is tantamount to ending the negotiations and perfecting the contract in the place of the parties. This is an immediate violation of the principle of freedom of contract, and may result in a violation of the willingness of the parties to enter into negotiations, a readiness that is important to the commercial dynamism that contract law aspires to serve.