To sum up, it should be noted that Knitwerk also prepared an order release form in advance of the engagement with Harel, in which it was stated that the value of the engagement was $1,100,000 (P/49). In the form, Knitork once again described the procurement process as follows: " ... Suppliers such as Truth Computing, Harel, WE, and Triple C, which market IBM equipment, were contacted due to the project's constraints to purchase only IBM hardware for the servers. WE and Triple C submitted an initial response but refrained from continuing the process since most of the equipment (about 50%) was purchased under an agreement from the Comptroller General's Office from Harel, and a price quote was received from Emet Avod Dell Equipment that was not relevant. R.P. asked to select one supplier who will carry out the procurement process (including 3rd party equipment) and will even carry out the integration work at Elta and the customer's site. During the negotiations, the prices that Elta had previously paid for equipment other than IBM were examined, and these prices were set against the supplier..." (P/49, Kenitork's testimony that he described the procurement process in the form, p. 342, paras. 1-12; On the top row of the printed form next to ConnectYork's name, the date is July 4, 2010; There is no date in the lines intended for other officials in Elta, and it was not clarified when the invitation was actually signed; See also Zaguri's testimony, p. 2217, paras. 22-23 that the date here does not necessarily reflect the date of the order).
- Interim summary: The evidence indicates that after the project personnel characterized the needs of the project and further to their request, the procurement company applied for quotes from a number of suppliers – namely the Baltimore Police Department. Harel, Wii and Triple C submitted their bids at this stage in coordination so that Harel's bid was the lowest. This is behind Elta's back and without her knowledge. Later on, the project and procurement personnel made progress, with the management focusing mainly on Harel – whose coordinated proposal was the cheapest – alongside the examination of another proposal by EMET that was based on Dell equipment. Finally, after a procurement committee and an exemption committee were held at ELTA, an exemption from a tender was granted and the order was approved to be issued to Harel. In their summaries, Wei and Harel raised claims regarding defects in the procurement process, claims of impropriety of the process and the fact that it was fictitious. All of these claims, as well as the fact that at a certain point ELTA focused on Harel's proposal, do not attest to the fact that the competition was prima façade. They do not change the picture that emerges from the evidence that the pricing of the Baltimore Police Officer was a true pricing, in order to obtain true offers, and in any event they do not justify or legitimize the coordination of the proposals that were submitted at the outset.
- We will now briefly address these defense arguments.
Reference to the defense's arguments
- As stated above, in the summaries, Wei and Harel raised various arguments whose common denominator, in one formulation or another, is that Harel's win in the Baltimore project was assured and known in advance, that there was no competition in Baltimore, and that the competitive proceeding was fictitious.
- I cannot accept these arguments and they do not change the incriminating conclusion.
- Harel claimed previous involvement in the project, which gave her an advantage. Harel claimed that she had been involved in the Baltimore project "years" prior to the publication of the Balam (Harel did not refer in her summaries to the evidentiary basis for this, paragraph 304 of the summaries); that the contents of the project were based on a previous project that Harel had executed; and that, as Knitwerk himself testified to the supplier who supplied equipment in a previous project from the same family, there is an advantage (p. 443, paras. 7-8). However, even if Harel did indeed have an advantage – even a significant – due to previous involvement in a project from a similar 'family', this does not guarantee her win in advance and does not justify coordinating proposals. It should be recalled that as emerged from the evidence, and from the correspondence at the outset, this was a new project at Elta, and the project personnel themselves approached ELTA with a request to go out to a number of different suppliers (P/6, correspondence dated January 3, 2010).
Comptroller Agreement - The fact that a significant part of the contents of the Comptroller Security Council was included in the Comptroller General's agreement does not indicate that there was no room for competition
- Another argument by Harel was based on the Comptroller General's agreement. As already noted above, in 2007 a civil appeal was added to the Comptroller General's agreement with respect to the procurement of servers and ancillary components by suppliers that won the Accountant General's tender (N/10, N/77). According to Harel, when the conditions set were met, a civil appeal was required to purchase certain equipment made by IBM exclusively from Harel, which was one of the winning suppliers in the Accountant General's tender, at a significant discount, 51.8% of the IBM price list (ibid.).
- With regard to the Baltimore project now under discussion, the evidence showed that a significant part, more than half of the equipment, fell within the scope of the Comptroller General's agreement (see, for example, N/25 (first page) where it was noted that "most of the equipment under the Comptroller Agreement was through the Harel Company"; P/25 (second page) where it was noted that "60% of the contents of the order in a framework agreement"; P/49 there it was noted that "... Most of the equipment (about 50%) was purchased under an agreement with the Comptroller General..."). Against this background, Harel argued that her win was known and guaranteed in advance, that the end of the proceeding attests to its beginning, that Harel was, in the first place, a sole supplier, and that the pricing process at Balam was fictitious (Harel also referred in this context to the testimony of Zeiger, who claimed that the project was Harel's "100 percent" (p. 5468, paras. 1-3); Although it is evident from his testimony that he does not remember the project in any real way or the details; See also the testimony of Kinturk according to which the prices of the Comptroller's agreement were the best on the market, p. 432, paras. 19-24; and that the prices of other equipment, which is not IBM's, were set as a target by ELTA, p. 432, s. 434, s. 20 - p. 435, s. 2).
- The claims on the basis of the Comptroller General's Agreement and its implications for competition were repeated in a number of charges (and were also raised in general application, for example, paragraphs 50-56 of Harel's summaries; paragraphs 10-11 of the Wee summaries; paragraphs 168-173 of Triple C summaries). We will now address them in detail. As it seems, the contractor does not. Zeiger and Harel were well aware that the Comptroller's agreement did not automatically guarantee Harel that he would win civil appeal projects, and that even when the contents of the project came under the Comptroller's agreement, civil appeals held competition, which Harel feared. In any event, the arguments do not justify the coordination of proposals or legitimize it.
- In certain places in his interrogation, Zeiger argued that in view of the Comptroller General's agreement, a civil appeal must buy equipment that was included in the agreement from Harel and therefore has no need or reason to coordinate with anyone (P/220, paras. 259-268, where he argued that a civil appeal must buy from Harel regardless of the prices it receives from others; P/218, paras. 297-299). As stated above, both in the current case and in other charges, Harel and Zeiger claimed that in light of the Comptroller General's agreement, Harel's win was guaranteed in advance, from which they sought to conclude that there was no real competition.
- However, it was clear from the evidence, as Zeiger and Harel knew, that even when it came to the equipment included in the Comptroller General's agreement, the appeal asked for price quotes from various suppliers in order to make sure that the price it received was indeed the cheapest. Because the competing companies can offer cheaper offers;
- This will be used in an arrangement that will reduce competition and harm it.
- , p. 4839, s. 19 - Gharay] and in reducing competition. R32 and that there was always a concern on the part of Harel that the civil appeal would purchase the equipment from others and not from it (we discussed this at length in paragraph 96 above, in connection with the discussion of Wee's winning of the Bluray project – prior to the settlement of the first indictment – and despite Harel's position that this was a project that fell under the Comptroller General's agreement and that Harel should have accepted it).
In this context, it is appropriate to quote once again Zeiger's clear words in his interrogation: