The Tenders Committee selected the winner of a tender that submitted a more expensive bid without giving the other bidder, whose bid was cheaper, the right to a hearing and without giving reasons for this in the minutes.
The Court accepted the petition and held that the Tenders Committee had acted in violation of the Israeli tender laws and revoked its decision. The Tenders Committee is obligated to select the best bid in the weighting all the criteria set out in the tender documents, unless it granted a right to a hearing to the bidder of the cheapest / best bid and there were special circumstances and reasoning recorded in the minutes. Here, the tender included a price component (50%) and a quality component (50%) and it was decided that the bid with the best weighted score would win the tender. Although two bids were duly submitted to the tender, the Tenders Committee ignored the tender terms, did not weigh in the bids with regard to the various components and in fact arbitrarily preferred a bidder whose bid was more expensive. The Tenders Committee did not specify in the minutes all the special reasons that formed the basis of its decision and did not grant the owner of the cheapest bid the right to a hearing and in fact, chose the winner contrary to the explicit terms of the tender. This conduct is flawed and therefore the decision regarding the selection of the winner was revoked by Court and the matter was returned to the Tenders Committee for a new decision in accordance with the Israeli tender laws.