Another dispute that will be considered relates to the question of whether the defendant conducted the negotiations in bad faith and whether he withdrew from it unlawfully, as well as whether his decision not to complete the transaction stemmed from practical and legitimate reasons, or whether it was intended to enable him to repudiate his obligations to the plaintiff. In this framework, it is also necessary to examine whether the plaintiff was entitled to rely on the defendant's representations, and in particular whether her reliance was expressed when she sold her apartment in Kiryat Bialik, and whether as a result she suffered financial damages that establish her right to compensation - whether by virtue of the agreed compensation stipulation, or by virtue of subsistence compensation or by virtue of the laws of reliance, and if so, what is the appropriate amount of compensation in the circumstances of the case.
Discussion and Decision
In order to decide the plaintiff's claim to her entitlement to the agreed compensation by virtue of the clause included in the draft agreement that was exchanged between the parties, it is first necessary to decide whether the draft agreement was perfected into a binding sales contract, even though no formal agreement was signed between them.
As a rule, the enforcement remedy assumes the existence of a binding contract that has been breached by one of the parties. Indeed, the absence of a binding contract does not preclude the priori feasibility of granting an enforcement remedy. However, the question of whether it is possible to order the enforcement of a contract at the pre-contractual stage can be done most often in exceptional cases (Civil Appeal 579/83 Sonnenstein v. Gabso, IsrSC 42(2) 278,288-278 (1988); Civil Appeal 829/80 Shikun Ovdim v. Zepnik, IsrSC 37(1) 579,583 (1983)). Therefore, in our case, it is necessary to examine whether the negotiations between the parties' counsel have evolved into a binding legal agreement, or whether the parties were very close to entering into a binding contractual relationship and were even on their way to signing the coveted contract, but did not reach it, and remained at the negotiation stage.