| Tel Aviv-Jaffa District Court | ||
| 03 July 2017 | ||
| Criminal Case 4368-05-16 State of Israel v. Siemens Israel in Tax Appeal et al.
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| Before: The Honorable Judge Dr. Michal Agmon-Gonen |
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The Accuser |
State of Israel By Adv. Yehudit Tirosh-Gross, Adv. Amir Tabenkin, Adv. Avi Aronis, and Adv. Assaf Issauk, District Attorney Civil Case (Taxation and Economics) |
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Against
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| The defendants: | 1 Siemens Israel inTax Appeal
By Adv. Nadav Weissman, Adv. Adi Permader and Adv. Guy Zalmanson of Meitar Likvornik Geva Leshem Tal & Co. 2. David Richard Cohn 3. Jonah Schweitzer 4. Yaakov Hayin 5. Haim Bar Ner 6. Zvi Eyal 7. David Elmakis |
Decision
Not only would this seem strange and undesirable, but we will see the intention of the legislature if we allow the bodies that are incorporated because they are united to say: "Let the individual member who was involved in the act stand trial and we fled."
(The words of the Honorable President Dr. Moshe Zmora in the case of the High Court of Justice 125/50 Beit Hashita Group of Classes v. Transferring a Hearing Place for the Prevention of the Expropriation of Gates and Specifications, IsrSC 5(1) 113, 139 (1950).
The criminal liability of a corporation, its scope, and its implications are the questions at the center of the discussion before me, and at the center of them is the question of whether the state is permitted to enter into an agreement with a state witness with the company's managers, so that they will testify against it in the framework of the criminal proceeding.
An indictment was filed against Siemens Israel in a tax appeal (hereinafter: Siemens Israel or the defendant), accusing it of bribery, bribery, fraud and breach of trust of a public servant, and money laundering. According to the indictment, this is an affair of bribes of millions of euros by Siemens Israel to various officials at the IEC, who were also accused in the same indictment. Five defendants confessed to accepting bribes as part of plea bargains and were sentenced. I now have before me Siemens' request to cancel the indictment against it, due to the fact that with its officers during the relevant period, the bribe-givers, state witness agreements were signed and they were granted immunity to testify against it. This is Mr. Oren Aharonson (A.T. No. 27, hereinafter: Aaronson), Mr. Yitzhak Hirsch (C.A. No. 30, hereinafter: Hirsch) and Mr. Günther Weiss (C.A. No. 45, hereinafter: Weiss). According to the defendant, signing a state witness agreement or granting immunity to the three organs, the bribe-giver requires immunity in her case as well. The defendant further argues that granting this immunity makes it impossible to accept the testimony of the organs regarding the company, since it is a blatant violation of her right to a fair trial, including her right to immunity from self-incrimination, and the right to remain silent to which she is entitled. The defendant further claims that her prosecution and the exemption of all of its organs constitutes selective enforcement.
- Summary of the preliminary arguments and the facts in the indictment
1.1 The defendant's preliminary arguments and the proceeding so far