Hence the petition before me.
- The Petitioner's Arguments
The Petitioner argues that the Respondent erred in justifying its decision not to disqualify the Ness proposal by the fact that if it is disqualified, there will remain only one valid bid in the tender. I will note at this point that this argument should be rejected. Indeed, in the framework of the deliberations of the subcommittee of the tenders committee, this reasoning was mentioned, but the tenders committee, which is the body that was authorized to decide, and it is the one that actually decided all the matters on the agenda, did not mention this reason in its final decision.
The Petitioner argues that the tenders committee's reasoning according to which Ness proposed: "an evaluation model with a fixed methodology, dependent on external and essentially independent variables, which leaves a relatively narrow margin for maneuvering for discretion", is inconsistent with the opinion of the professionals in the subcommittee, who reduced the grade given to the model on the grounds that relatively much discretion would be exercised in its operation and that it was subject to pressure. This argument cannot tip the scales either, since only two of the six members of the subcommittee commented that in their opinion the model proposed by Ness is not objective, and in any event, the tenders committee, which is the decisive factor as opposed to the subcommittee, which is only a recommending body, preferred Prof. Israeli's opinion on this matter. Therefore, this argument is rejected.
The Petitioner argues that in examining its arguments regarding the concern of a conflict of interest in which Ness is involved, the Respondent focused only on the claims relating to Danel's relationship with the institutional bodies, and that in addition to rejecting these claims without justification, the Respondent ignored other indirect connections of Ness that raise concerns of a conflict of interest, including the Petitioner's claims that the institutional entities control more than 25% of Hilan, which is the controlling shareholder of Ness M; The claim that a significant portion of Ness's revenues, if they originate from institutional bodies, goes beyond Danel's activity; and the claim that Ness Am is Moody's representative in Israel and defines Moody's as its strategic partner in providing services to institutional entities in Israel.