Harel - (P/147, at 10:33 p.m.) An email to Gilad in which Shachar wrote, "Please send to Alex [Shkanevsky]" and attached a proposal bearing Harel's logo, detailing the prices of all the components of the contents and its total sum of $399,402 .
EMET - (P/148, at 22:38) An e-mail message to Wischnitzer in which Shachar wrote, "Attached is a price quote for the financier, send it to Alex tomorrow please" and attached a detailed price quote for all the components of the contents for a total of $444,158.
The emails are clear. Shachar sends the other suppliers the prices they must submit in the bids they submit to Maman. Shahar confirmed in his testimony that he had sent the price proposals to the competing companies in order for them to submit them to finance in accordance with the planning (p. 2859, paras. 1-5 (in relation to Shohat); p. 2857, paras. 20-31 (in relation to Gilad); p. 2859, paras. 8-13 (in relation to Wischnitzer)). Shachar testified that he did so in order for Value to win the project (p. 2860, para. 25).
- Shachar further testified that the recipients – i.e., Gilad, Wischnitzer and Shochat – agreed to his request to submit the bid at the price he stated (p. 2859, paras. 30-32; see also his testimony at p. 2865, paras. 15-23, where he testified that Gilad agreed, because this was the agreement, in order for the value to be awarded). As we shall see below, Shohat denied that he had agreed to Shachar's request and claimed that in fact he had submitted an offer at a significantly lower price than the one sent by Shahar. Shohat's arguments and the question of whether it was proven that he was a party to the arrangement will be discussed at length later.
- To complete the picture with regard to the first part of the indictment – Blam Oranim – we will briefly refer to the proposals that were submitted to the actual funder.
Submission of Actual Proposals
- From the evidence that was presented, the following picture emerges with respect to the submission of the proposals to actually fund:
- Matrix - On the night of September 13, 2011, shortly after the corresponding email message sent to him by Shachar (P/146), Shochat sent Schnevsky a price quote on behalf of Matrix (P/132). Shohat claimed that he did not see the email that Shachar sent him. As we will see below, this version is not true. The price quote submitted by Shohat is copied, almost in its entirety, from the table that Shachar sent him in such a way that leaves no doubt that he saw the table and the message. At the same time, in the line of the total amount of the offer, Shochat stated a total of $395,860 . This sum is ostensibly significantly lower than the total amount allocated for Matrix's offer in the email sent by Shachar to Shohat, $449,440 . The parties disagreed on the question of whether the offer submitted by Shochat amounted to the sum of $395,860 (as indicated in the message he sent at night), which at that time he acted in accordance with Shachar's request, or whether the late offer was intended to be a supplementary offer to the proposal he submitted in the morning, when he acted in accordance with Shahar's request, at least approximately. We will discuss this dispute below.
- Harel - On the morning of September 14, 2011, Gilad sent Kashnevsky the price quote on Harel's behalf to the Oranim Commander (P/131). The proposal was submitted for a total of $399,402 in a manner that exactly matches Shahar's email to Gilad. Gilad even took the trouble to verify things with Shachar in advance. Prior to the submission of the proposal, Gilad contacted Shahar and wrote to him, "This is what I am sending", attaching Harel's proposal for the said sum (P/149), Shahar replied "send" (P/282, P/150; Gilad even added a cynical comment to Shachar later on, p. 2865, paras. 13-14). Only afterwards did Gilad submit the proposal (P/131). The conduct testifies unequivocally that there was an agreement to coordinate the proposals and that Gilad acted in accordance with the agreement.
- On the morning of September 14, 2011, Shachar Leshkanovsky submitted Wee's proposal to the Oranim Task Force (P/133). The total amount of the proposal was $388,705 in accordance with Schiffer's planning table (P/145). As we saw above, and as Shahar testified, it was Oshri who prepared Wee's proposal (see also: p. 2838, paras. 10-17). Wie's offer was based on a discount of 43% from IBM's price list (as indicated in the table attached to P/133). This is in contrast to the draft proposal prepared by Wei shortly after the publication of the Bulletin and with which it worked with IBM, which relied on a larger discount of 53.2% (N/265, and see paragraph 639 above).
- EMET - Weschnitzer's proposal on behalf of EMET was not presented as evidence at trial. The accuser explained that this was not found (as noted, at a certain point Wischnitzer announced that he would not participate in the BALAM, and in response Peretz acted to incentivize him to submit a proposal anyway, see paragraph 645 above). However, the evidence clearly shows that A.E.T. participated in the online bidding later on, the condition for which was the submission of a bid to Balam Oranim (ibid., N/82), in a manner that supports the fact that A.E.T. submitted a bid in response to Balam (see also: N/101, the summons sent to Wischnitzer for the online bidding in which it was noted that the pricing was for the systems in relation to which they submitted price quotes). In addition, in a summary of the procurement process conducted by Sheknevsky in real time, a few days after the online pricing stage, Shkanevsky noted that at the stage of the procurement process, price quotes were received fromfour suppliers and that these ranged from $388,000 to $440,000 (P/126, para. 5; P/125). Shekanevsky testified that he wrote the summary on the basis of the documents and data that were before him, that he did not make it up, and therefore he had an offer of $440,000 (p. 991, s. 13 - p. 993, s. 8; see also p. 994, s. 24). This supports the fact that Weischnitzer submitted an offer of $440,000 on behalf of EMET in a manner that roughly corresponds to what Shachar sent.
- Interim Summary: The evidence presents a clear and unequivocal picture, according to which an arrangement has been made to coordinate the price proposals that will be submitted to the Oranim Police Department, so that the prices of the other bids will be higher than the price of Wee's bid. There can be no doubt that Shachar and Wee, Gilad and Harel, Wischnitzer and EMET were parties to the arrangement. Below, we will address separately and in detail the claims and evidence in connection with Oshri's involvement in the arrangement, as well as the claims and evidence relating to the involvement of Shochat and Matrix in the arrangement. We will preface by noting that the evidence clearly shows that Oshri was a party to the settlement in the Oranim Army, while all that was said about the slaughterer remained in doubt.
- In the indictment, the defendants were also charged with the offense of fraudulent receipt.
- The parties to the settlement did not disclose the matter of coordination to finance or to the civil appeal and presented a false representation as if the proposals were submitted independently and without coordination.
- Shekanevsky – it was he who requested the price quotes and he was the one to whom the bids were submitted – testified that he did not know about the coordination and that if he had known about it in real time, he would have contacted his superiors, informed them, and consulted on what to do (p. 934, paras. 5-7, paras. 20-21). This testimony of Shkanevsky that he did not know about the coordination was reliable and no real basis was laid to contradict it. It should be accepted. Shachar himself testified that Shkanevsky did not know about the communication between Shahar and the other participants in the Oranim project, and in any case he did not know about the coordination (P. 2883, paras. 28-31; Oshri also did not claim in his interrogation that Shkanevsky knew that the proposals were coordinated with V, P/215, paras. 378-383; see also paras. 231-233). In her summaries, Wei referred to statements made by Shachar in his cross-examination, where Shachar suddenly claimed that Shkanevsky had approached him (to Shahar) in order for Shachar to ask Wischnitzer to participate, and that Shkanevsky was aware that Shachar would tell Wischnitzer what prices to submit (p. 3261, s. 13 - p. 3262, s. 5; see p. 283 for Wee's summaries). This is a late, suppressed and unreliable version (Wei did not claim there that this version was even presented to Schneevsky in his interrogation; even in the reference to Shachar's interrogations in the Authority, P/557(5), paras. 1074-1075, there is no evidence that Wei and Shachar did not claim there that he acted with Wischnitzer at the request of Sheknevsky or with his knowledge; the references to the interrogation are mentioned at pp. 3066-3067 of Shahar's testimony). Therefore, it is necessary to clearly prefer Shahar's words, in his main interrogation, which were made against the interest.
Peretz, who was Shkanevsky's manager, testified that he "unequivocally" did not know about the e-mail correspondence between the suppliers, because he did not imagine that there were such things or that the suppliers were conducting themselves among themselves, that it should not be and that it was unreasonable, and that if he had known about it in real time, he would have gone there, his manager, and the legal office (p. 1633, paras. 3-10; p. 1634). These words have not been contradicted and must be accepted.