The Jerusalem District Court (the Honorable Justice David Gideoni) today, 26.12.21, sentenced, as part of a plea bargain, a sentence of seven months’ actual imprisonment and a fine of NIS 45,000 for a customer manager at Harel Information Technologies Ltd.
Mr. Gilad Tzur, who at the relevant time was a customer manager at Harel Information Technologies, admitted in a plea bargain in the accusations concerning coordination of pricing procedures for the purchase of products in the field of IAI’s computerization. The offenses were committed for about 3 years between the years 2009-2012 and involved pricing proceedings with a cumulative financial volume of about $ 3 million. Zur was also convicted of receiving anything fraudulently for some of the charges.
The court upheld the plea agreement and ruled that it was balanced, in line with the public interest and should be respected.
The district court ruling expresses the severity the courts attribute to violations of the Competition Act, and continues the trend of imposing actual prison sentences behind bars for violating the Competition Act. A few months ago, the court sentenced Wei!’S sales manager to 5.5 months in prison. Ltd. due to its involvement in the affair.
The case was investigated by the Competition Authority’s Investigations Department and an indictment was filed against many defendants and against Harel Information Technology Companies Ltd., Wei! Ltd., Triple C Ltd., EMT Computing Ltd. and Matrix ET Integration And Infrastructure Ltd. The case of other defendants in the case is still being clarified before the court.
The Competition Authority is represented by attorneys Ohad Burstein, Or Belkin, Natan Yarden and Amira Burken.
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Were you a party to the violations of competition law? The Competition Authority operates an immunity program from criminal prosecution for a cartel offense. For more details, visit the Authority’s website –
https://www.gov.il/he/Departments/General/immunityplan