It should also be emphasized now that there is no dispute that all of the agreements that were signed in later stages between the parties – all constitute versions of this agreement – i.e., various amendments were made to this agreement by the parties. As such, even in the later agreements – and although the parties do not disagree that the service provided was assistance in the IPO – the title of the agreement remained identical, and moreover – as will be detailed below – the consideration remained defined as the Finders Fee, however, changes were made with regard to the consideration for the "Finder".
In light of the foregoing, I will hereby refer to this Agreement as the "Basic Agreement"
- The beginning of the initial public offering route -
The summary indicates that the first engagement between the parties was – as claimed by Don – for the purpose of receiving divisive fundraising services. At the same time, as noted, the company's IPO path developed at a later stage. As for the beginning of this path, Don claims that he met Ben-Shabbat at a conference in China, and that he was interested in the possibility of issuing the company's shares in Australia (I will note that this is also supported by the testimony of Ben-Shabbat, who approved this initial meeting (see his testimony from line 23 on page 87 to line 1 on page 88, in which Ben-Shabbat approved the meeting in China and even testified that Don sent him a presentation of the company a year before Ackerman's application in the context of the company). However, since at this stage the company needed to raise funds in order to ensure its continued activity, Don was of the opinion that it was not ready to carry out an IPO. Peleg, for his part, claims that he knew a person named Uri Ackerman (hereinafter: "Ackerman") who was active on the Australian Stock Exchange, and that Ackerman added Ben Shabbat, who is active and has connections in the capital market in Australia, and among other things, was in contact with a brokerage firm called Armada Capital, which Ananda managed. According to Peleg, he was the one who connected Ackerman and Ben Shabbat to the company. Apart from this dispute as to the question of who knew to discuss Ben Shabbat – a dispute that has no bearing on the parties' arguments later on – the chronology as of September 3, 2017 – consolidates and is – as it emerges from the correspondence and the parties' arguments as detailed below.
- On September 3, 2017, a meeting was held between Peleg and Ackerman and Don. As I have already stated above – the relationship between Don and the company and Peleg was already established, in the course of providing fundraising services to the company. As it appears from the correspondence attached by Peleg, he forwarded to Ackerman the details of the company and the details of Don; He sent Ackerman a presentation of the company prior to this meeting; And yes, he gave Ben Shabbat a presentation of the company so that he could pass it on to Ananda after this meeting.
There is no dispute that further to this, and as appears from the correspondence that was also attached, on September 5, 2017, Ben Shabbat contacted Don, and asked him to arrange a telephone meeting with Ananda. I will note in this regard that according to Don, Peleg was not the one who connected the company with Ananda, but rather that the initiative and the idea for this were Ben Shabbat's. Don also claims that Peleg did not know Ananda at all, but that the entire relationship was created through Ben Shabbat. This last dispute is not substantive in my opinion, first of all, since the question of how this relationship was created does not affect the arguments of the parties later on, and in addition to that, Mazdon admitted in his testimony that already at the initial stage, he understood that there was a commercial relationship between Peleg, Ackerman and Ben Shabbat.