Moreover, the very fact that the procurement is issued, even if the probability of finding other procurement alternatives is not high or even low, is valuable from the procurement's point of view. Asking for quotes from a number of suppliers can contribute to the competitive uncertainty, creating a concern among the supplier who believes that the inventory is in his hands, even if only a certain one, that at the end of the day another inventory will be found or that another supplier will be willing to sell the same inventory at a lower profit, in a way that can incentivize the first supplier to offer an optimal price, perhaps while reducing its margin, in order to ensure its winning. p. 415, paras. 12-20, paras. 3-5, paras. 9-10; Vered, p. 6409, paras. 26-30). The NDC is intended to incentivize suppliers to examine other procurement alternatives and to make genuine offers (Kniturk, p. 418, s. 21). The UAV is designed to create competition. Fear and uncertainty are at the heart of the competition. Coordinating price quotes for the purpose of removing them is unacceptable and criminal.
It should also be emphasized that the issuance of the Anemone Campaign for the purpose of maintaining competition between suppliers, despite the fact that a single (internal) supplier was approved by the project, also emerges from the description in the documents of a civil appeal from a real time (P/51, where Knitwerk was appointed by the Procurement Committee to conduct negotiations and for the purpose of "competition between suppliers", Testimony of Knitürk, p. 347, paras. 6-10; This is how the matter was described in N/14: Wei – a single supplier, but "negotiations were carried out with 3 companies", "competition between three suppliers"; This was also described in the decision to grant an exemption from a tender (ibid., on the second page); Kenitork also described them in real time in a release form for order – P/50, where it was noted that although inventory was located in the alltrade that was examined by the project and the procurement, "competition was carried out between the suppliers Harel Triple C and We-Way, when the We offer was optimal"). Knitork's attempt to obtain an offer from Harel on the basis of the Comptroller General's agreement also clearly testifies that he tried to compete and receive the best true offers (N/36 and see paragraph 358 above). Therefore, the defense's arguments are also inconsistent with the documents from real time.
- Bottom line: In the circumstances of the case – and much more than necessary – it was proven that the acquisition of ELTA had good practical reasons to conduct a pricing process and request quotes from various suppliers (that is, the Anemone Procurement Unit), and that this was the case, and for this reason, too, the defense's claims of fictitious pricing should be rejected.
- For the sake of the entirety of the discussion, it should be noted that support for the fact that in the circumstances of the case there was room for the procurement to hold a pricing and not suffice with the approval of a single supplier issued by the project, and in any case that the defense's claims of fictitious pricing should be rejected, clearly arises from Oshri himself.
Oshri explained in his interrogation at the ISA that in the case before us, if he (Oshri) had sat on an internal committee in Elta to approve a single supplier, "I would say that this is not a single supplier. I would have told Shlomi [Knitürk] to make an effort. It's true that it's hard to bring these products, but let's not be naïve, it's not a specific piece of land with a plot of land. I guess if they wanted to do the job, and there was enough time, they would have been able to get these servers from other places. We live in a world of the Internet. How long did it take for this effort to take and was it [a)halal possible? Good question? If I were on the committee, I would tell Shlomi to make an effort" (P/212, paras. 619-631; In his testimony, p. 4745, s. 18 - p. 4746, s. 12, he confirmed the words, even though he later tried to qualify them in an unconvincing manner). This is exactly what Knitürk acted when he applied for quotations in order to examine the existence of procurement alternatives (and here too, Oshri's attempt to exclude Knitork's actions is not convincing and is not useful for the defense, p. 4746, s. 14 - p. 4747, s. 8). In the defense's summaries, including Wei's summaries, there is no reference, at least not to substantive, to Oshri's remarks, and no real attempt was made to deal with them. This, too, constitutes significant support for the fact that Knitwerk sought to hold true pricing, in order to examine other procurement alternatives, and to undermine the defense's arguments.