"The court may exempt the winner from the obligation of restitution under section 1, in whole or in part, if it considers that the win did not involve the disadvantage of the creditor or if it sees other circumstances that make the restitution unjust."
In light of all the evidence that was brought before me, I am convinced that the defendant came out of the venture plan with a lack of money, since it proved that it had spent a total of $631,866 since the plan was approved by the Fund, and in fact received a refund of only $253,000 (Bluestein affidavit, para. 8). The defendant even proved that it had expenses in respect of the venture even before the application was approved by the Bird Foundation (ibid., para. 10 and Appendix 10). In view of the losses that it incurred in any case as a result of the failure of the project - and here it should be noted that I was not at all under the impression that the defendant wanted him to die - imposing a duty of restitution on the defendant would be unjust.
- In addition, more than necessary, and in order not to leave the matter unaddressed, I will note that I am not convinced by the plaintiff's arguments regarding his acute role in formulating the plan, without diminishing, of course, the assistance he provided, which is indisputable.
I am aware that the plaintiff claims that he was the one who initiated the application to the fund (par. pp. 13, 24-25), and was the living spirit in the establishment and promotion of the project, and as he puts it, "the project would not have existed without me, if I had not been there would be no project, there would have been no money, no advance, nothing" (par. pp. 13, paras. 34-35; p. 20, paras. 1-13). Nor did the plaintiff's expert opinion, Mr. Ronen Rozin (hereinafter: the expert), and his conclusion that "the value of the plaintiff's contribution to the project can be estimated in the range of ILS 215,000 to ILS 240,000, and an average total of ILS 230,000 as of December 2022."