To be precise: the plaintiff argued in paragraph 34 of his summaries that "it is possible to begin in the negative way" of defining the scope of the partnership, while noting the personal businesses of each party as not included in it, and added in section 35 that an in-depth examination of the conduct of the parties in the combination of private and joint businesses should be conducted. Of course, a claim about what is "not included" in the partnership cannot be used to determine what is "included" in it, and an "in-depth examination" can only be carried out if a partnership has been proven and what it includes. At this stage of the proceeding, the court does not conduct an "investigation" in order to check which companies are included in the partnership - the plaintiff must provide a clear and proven version in this regard, which has not been done.
In paragraph 47 of his summaries, the plaintiff provides "examples" of companies that are included in the partnership - and includes those that were not mentioned in the statement of claim and in the pre-trial, it seems to me that even in the plaintiff's affidavit: Chipping Holdings Limited, M.Z. Investments and Development (Z.H.) (1998) Ltd. The absurdity of this is also evident from this.
- Not only in the identity of the companies included in the partnership, the plaintiff failed to present an orderly and coherent version, but also in presenting the partnership's field of business.
In paragraph 8 of the statement of claim, it is claimed that the partnership dealt with "different and varied" businesses and assets. The affidavit did not present a version regarding this. In his interrogation, the plaintiff testified that the partnership dealt with "the supply of workers on the subject of construction and execution" (p. 123 of the transcript, para. 28).
Despite this, the plaintiff mentioned in the interrogation various companies as part of the partnership that did not deal at all in the field of manpower, such as the solar project, and as noted, the reply even mentioned two companies, T.L.P. Assets in Tax Appeal and N.A.I.R.A. Ltd., which deals in income-producing real estate and not in manpower.
- The plaintiff also provided a number of different versions of the alleged partnership : in paragraph 18 of his affidavit he claimed that the joint activity began in 2000; in paragraph 1 of the amended indictment, in which he confessed, it was stated that the activity in the manpower corporations took place in the years 2005-2012; in paragraph 64 of his summaries, the plaintiff claims that the joint activity lasted for more than 10 years and up to nearly 20 years, from a particularly flexible scope. It is clear that it is not possible to accept such a flexible and variable version.
- It is clear that it is inconceivable to accept such a line of argument. The plaintiff did not know how to present in a coherent manner who the companies included in the partnership were, what its scope was and what its business was. His versions in the context of the list of companies in his interrogation not only contradict the statement of claim and the affidavit, but as stated, they contradict themselves, to the point that I found it difficult to follow them. Only for this reason should his version be rejected as unreliable and the claim of the partnership as a whole should be rejected.
E5 The plaintiff's erroneous perception of the business relationship between the parties
- The plaintiff claimed in his affidavit that already at the beginning of the activity, in 2000, he and defendant 1 operated through companies - first Bell Horse Breeding Ltd., then "Pal", Odan Logistics and Odan Services (paragraph 20). The plaintiff says that he suspected that defendant 1 was defrauding him, inter alia by using the business funds for personal purchases, and therefore he was angry with him and considered "dissolving the partnership" (paragraphs 21-23 of the affidavit). He also notes that it was orally agreed upon the existence of the partnership and the equal distribution of profits, as well as the division of areas of activity between them (paragraph 31 of the affidavit). He further claims that according to the advice of defendant 1, some of the partnership's business was registered in the name of others, through a number of companies - the same manpower corporations (sections 32-49). According to him, despite this, the management of the partnership continued to be carried out by him and by defendant 1 (section 50).
The plaintiff does not understand how, despite all his promotion of the manpower corporations' business, his entry into prison and the payment of millions, defendant 1 is able to claim that they were not partners (section 54).
- As presented above, the plaintiff's evidence does not include any indications of the existence of exceptional circumstances that justify ignoring the existence of the companies in which the plaintiff and defendant 1 operated throughout the entire process - both initially, through horse breeding and service feeding, and later, from 2005, through a number of manpower corporations that were registered under the ownership of others, in order to circumvent the regulatory limitations.
- It seems that the explanation for the discrepancy between the plaintiff's claims for the existence of a partnership and the evidence before me lies in the plaintiff's erroneous perception, to say the least, of what a partnership is in the legal sense. This, whether he really believes in this view or not. This is what it turned out in his cross-examination:
"The Honorable Judge Shaked: ...Tomorrow morning you open a certain company with a certain person, a limited company, each of them receives 50% of its shares, the company is engaged in the sale of shoes, you have opened a store, are you a partner in all intents and purposes of a shoe store or in this company?