"I want it to be clear, I contacted, do you know why I contacted? After all, I saw that in one of his inquiries my master wrote that we did it in order to get rich. If I wanted to get rich, this is a quote from you, and I would turn to you. The default for Osip, who holds 604,000 options in trust as part of what was given to me, was just sold and I would take money. If I wanted to get rich."
Indeed, if we go to the plaintiff's view, maximizing the personal interest of Levy and Ashkenazi should have been in the sale of the options in the market. But as noted, Levy and Ashkenazi did not act in this way.
- Another argument of the plaintiff is that his position regarding the existence of "problems" in the drilling should also be based on the fact that at the meeting of the board of directors on September 7, 2013, Ashkenazi said: "There are a number of question marks, not only a budget problem, but also some of the data obtained from the logs were problematic" (Page 2 of the minutes of the Board of Directors' meeting). In relation to this claim, Ashkenazi claimed that he was referring to the technical problems that existed at the time of the tests and rejected the plaintiff's position as if he meant that there were "problems in the drilling" (Ashkenazi in testimony in Halfon's motion, pp. 82, 11-27 and 84, 25-35; transcript of the hearing of January 21, 2024, page 26, 10-12).
An examination of the context of Ashkenazi's remarks shows that they were made after Levy described the manner in which the production tests were carried out (transcript of the hearing of September 7, 2013). Hence, there is a basis for Ashkenazi's claim that his words were made in the context of the technical performance of the tests and not in relation to the rate of pores. It should be noted that the minutes of the Operations Committee and the meeting of the Board of Directors indicate that there were indeed technical difficulties in carrying out the electrical log tests (see Domer's words in Appendix 6 to the statement of defense; Levy's words quoted in paragraph 66 above; Levy's testimony in Halfon's request, p. 67, 4-21). In any event, even if this was said in relation to the data obtained in the electrical logs tests, it is not possible to attribute to them a meaning that goes beyond what was said by Domer and Levy, which I have elaborated on above. This conclusion is supported by the fact that even those present at the board meeting did not relate to Ashkenazi's remarks as if they contained a different or more serious statement than what was said by Levy and Domer. To this, it should be added that in relation to Ashkenazi, it was not claimed, and certainly not proven, that he had expertise in the field of oil exploration.
- The plaintiff further argues that the fact that the defendants prepared the text of the report of September 8, 2013 in advance indicates that it was important for them to prepare a positive version, in order to present a positive picture and to attract investors to invest in shares. According to the plaintiff, to this should be added Ashkenazi's statements at the end of the meeting that it is important to keep the information to which they were exposed confidential. According to the plaintiff, Ashkenazi's intention was to keep the results of the electrical log tests confidential, and to this must be added the pressure exerted by Levy and Ashkenazi on the members of the board of directors to approve the wording of the announcement to the public.
Levy addressed this claim of the plaintiff and clarified that a draft of a decision had indeed been prepared in advance, which he had even shown to Ashkenazi as chairman of the board prior to the meeting, while clarifying that they did not intend to influence the board of directors in making its decision (page 24, paras. 16-29 of the minutes of January 21, 2024):