We will now address these arguments. It seems that the arguments do not show that the competition in the Anemone Alliance was ostensibly as claimed, they do not justify the coordination of the proposals behind ELTA's back or legitimize it, and they do not change the incriminating conclusion.
Approval of a single supplier in the project - does not exclude the possibility of competition by procurement and does not constitute a bid coordination instrument
- A central argument by Wei and Harel in their summaries is based on the approval of a single supplier given to the project prior to the publication of the BALAM. The essence of the argument is that the approval of a single supplier indicates that Wii was the only one that could have provided the required equipment for the project, and that Connectork's request for quotes at the Anemone Alliance was nothing more than fictitious pricing, for the minutes only, and not as a matter of real competition.
- In this context, Wei and Harel emphasized in their summaries various points that arose from the testimonies and which, according to them, supported the claim.
Among other things, they referred to Vered's testimony that the approval of a single supplier was not given as a matter of routine; the approval was given when the project personnel, the engineers, checked and found that only a certain supplier could provide what was required (p. 6381, paras. 9-12, paras. 28-29; p. 6382, paras. 15-32; p. 6383, pp. 5-6; p. 6384, paras. 23-24); that prior to the request to approve a single supplier, an engineer in the project also checked against other companies in the market. including Harel, and it was found that they could not supply the equipment (ibid., and also: p. 6404, paras. 28-29); that this information is also transmitted to the procurement personnel (ibid.); that Vered testified that when the approval of a single supplier is granted, the continuation of the financial conduct of the procurement is supposed to be carried out with the sole supplier – in our case (p. 6383, paras. 16-22); Because in this case, the project personnel – Vered and Rosenthal – participated in the meeting at the Ultratrade offices and the servers that were located were presented to them and examined by them, and that Vered testified that seeing the equipment in the warehouses was already "the end of the process" (p. 6684, s. 23 - p. 6385, s. 4; See also what is stated in paragraph 351 above, where Knitork also participated in the meeting at UltraTrade, for Rosenthal's testimony in relation to the meeting at UltraTrade, we will be required separately); that Vered testified that she was the one who worked with the project, and at that stage it was clear to him that "Swaltrade is Wei" (p. 6385, paras. 19-22); that on the part of the project it was important to receive the equipment on a short schedule (p. 6385, paras. 23-33, where he also testified that bringing the equipment from overseas dealers was an unrealistic option for him);