“The Temple Mount is in our hands”, the same historical call that Brigadier General Mota Gur coined in the brigade communications network after the occupation of the Temple Mount during the Six Day War, has since accompanied cases that have entered legal-criminal history. “The Greek island is in our hands,” My uncle is dark in the Greek island affair. And today we got to know another “Temple Mount in our hands”. Unconditional conditions of the Cable and Satellite Council for the Bezeq-yes deal. This approval is intended to advance the final approval signed by Prime Minister and Minister of Communications Benjamin Netanyahu.
Read more in Calcalist:
Controversy over the admissibility of the documents: The judges in favor of the defense
The final version submitted to Netanyahu’s signature was approved by the then legal adviser of the Ministry of Communications, Adv. Dana Neufeld (now the legal adviser to the Ministry of Health), who today continued her main testimony in the 4000 case, The problem is that Neufeld is not one of the relevant “cooks”, and defense attorneys opposed any attempt by prosecutor Adv.
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Adv. Jacques Chen during the Netanyahu trial
(Yoav Dodkevitz)
According to the lawsuit, Pilber also resulted in the wording of the approval omitting a clause that preserves the authority of the Ministry of Communications to take administrative enforcement measures, such as financial sanctions, against Bezeq. This is in response to Bezeq’s violations, such as the exercise of an option to purchase yes shares by Bezeq without requesting approval. It turns out that the violation does not prevent the approval but allows for the imposition of sanctions even after the transfer of control. It was important for Bezeq to remove this clause, and Pilber pushed Bezeq’s opposition. Witness Neufeld made it clear that she did not know and was not aware of these behind-the-scenes stirring. The defense, especially Shaul Alovich’s defense attorney, Adv. Jacques Chen, successfully piled up objections to the insertion of correspondence that dealt with the concoction of the move, correspondence that Neufeld was not a party to.
“How can you submit an unacceptable document?” Judge Moshe Baram wondered. Vulcan: “It is possible to show the witness documents that were presented to her during her interrogation ….”. And the head of the court, Rebecca Feldman-Friedman, signed the argument: “It is impossible to present documents to the community to which she is not a party.”
In the future, we will be privileged to enter the warmth of this kitchen, through the relevant witnesses such as Pilber, the VP of Finance he filled and Bezeq consultant Eli Kamir. In general, Neufeld approved the practice in which drafts of regulatory documents are forwarded to supervised entities, but she said these are emails exchanged between law firms. Defense attorney Boaz Ben-Zur hinted that other practices of consulting supervisors were also not foreign to the Ministry of Communications and not only in this case.
Through Neufeld, Vulcan sought to clear CEO Avi Berger of the accusations leveled at him in the cross-examination, as someone who harassed Bezeq for arbitrary and personal reasons. The defense raised an outcry. An honest man like him. We have ten witnesses who call the office and are willing to say the opposite. If we bring them, then you will rebuke us for prolonging the sentence unnecessarily. “
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Testimony of Avi Berger at the Netanyahu trial
(Amit Shabi)
At the center of File 4000 is the change in the Ministry of Communications’ policy, with regard to the terms of approving the Bezeq-yes transaction, in the transition between Berger CEOs and Pilber CEOs. In the transition between tougher and softer conditions. Neufeld confirmed that indeed Pilber, unlike Berger, tended to facilitate with Bezeq everything related to tariffs, engineering solutions and the abolition of structural separation.
The cancellation was important to Bezeq. The regulation forced it to provide its services through subsidiaries – for landline telephony, cellular, Internet and television. This split forced Bezeq to operate separate management and logistics mechanisms and prevented it from marketing all-inclusive packages. Bezeq claimed that the abolition of the separation would allow it to become more efficient and lower prices. The Ministry of Communications examined the separation through policy glasses designed in the Gronau and Hayek committees and turned it into a policy document by Minister Moshe Kahlon that conditioned the separation on the promotion of the wholesale market reform. Ada Neufeld was presented with a letter from Pilber to Bezeq CEO Stella Handler in which Pilber writes to her about examining and promoting the abolition of the separation.
3. The hearing dispute to cancel the separation: Pilber is angry, offended and pushing
It turns out that an attorney named Eric Reshef of Neufeld’s legal bureau was “loaned” to Pilber for assistance in professional matters, including the abolition of structural separation, and prepared documents he presented to Neufeld in a conversation between them, even after he completed his term with Neufeld. “They were done behind my back and without my knowledge.” It also turned out that Pilber wanted to keep Neufeld away from Bezeq matters. I was not prevented from doing so, “Neufeld testified, adding that regarding Pilber’s passion for canceling the separation: The signature replaces the professional hearing. “Because of the competitive consequences, because it is a change of policy, I thought it was necessary and even obligatory to hold a hearing.”
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Shlomo Pilber
(Photo: Uriel Cohen)
The hearing dispute escalated into an incident in which Pilber demanded that Neufeld “in an angry conversation” meet with Bezeq’s legal advisers and even threatened to bypass her and turn to the economic deputy of Attorney General Avi Licht. Neufeld overtook him and turned to Licht who supported her position.
Pilber writes an insulted email to Neufeld and complains that Neufeld hinted that he was allegedly “eating” from Bezeq’s paw and quoting her positions and desires – that the conditions for canceling the separation were met.
“The conditions for abolishing the separation – the wholesale market reform intended to cover Bezeq’s infrastructure – defined in the Kahlon document were not met,” Neufeld said. The regulator believed that the conditions were not met and Bezeq believed that it did. ”
4. The Neufeld-Pilber interface as a promo for the Pilber testimony
The Neufeld testimony is a kind of promo for the testimony of state witness Pilber. Through it, the prosecution is trying to inform the court, already now, about Pilber’s clear bias in favor of Bezeq. Using the Neufeld-Pilber interface, the lawsuit precedes Pilber. Whether it is the preparation of the ground for the thing itself, or whether it is in preparation for the possibility that Pilber himself will try to “soften” his contribution to Bezeq. In other words, not Neufeld is wanted to be heard here but Pilber.