Trans-Israel Highway Company Ltd. issued a tender in June 2018 for the planning of the Haifa light-rail project valued at NIS 300 million.
The joint venture of French infrastructure experts, Egis Group, and Amy-Metom Engineers and Consultants, whose bid came second place, filed a petition against the decision of the Tender Committee to award the tender to the Spanish, Inco and Israeli company, Yinon.
On July 7th, 2019, the District Court held a 9-hour hearing on the petition before the [now retired] VP of the Tel Aviv District Court, Dr. Kobi Vardi, following which the court recommended the petitioners withdraw their petition. On July 18th, 2019, the court rejected the petition and ordered the petitioners pay the respondents NIS 150,000, having accepted all our claims, and ruled that there was no room to intervene in the decision of the Trans-Israel Tender Committee.
Despite the Court's firm stance, the petitioners subsequently filed an appeal against the ruling and this morning the hearing of the appeal took place before the panel, which included the Hon. Justice Dafna Barak Erez, Justice Ofer Grosskopf and Justice Meni Mazuz.
Following a brief hearing during which the judges criticized the appellants' conduct and clarifying that there was no evidence of mismanagement of the tender procedure by the Tender Committee, the appellants were advised to withdraw from the appeal without ruling against them. The appellants accepted the recommendation of the court.
Trans-Israel Highway was represented by Asher Bichoonski and Yossi Daniel.