Pethon Lev filed a petition in the Jerusalem District Court today (Monday) against the Ministry of the Interior, the Shufersal chain, the Competition Authority and the Privacy Protection Authority regarding serious deficiencies arising from the food voucher tender, in which NIS 700 million will be transferred to the Shufersal chain that won the tender. The current petition joins a petition already filed by the Movement for Quality of Government which was joined last week by the “Food and Containers Forum for Food Security”.
The petition, filed by Adv. Yaniv Mets, stated that Shufersal’s victory was due to incorrect information provided in its bid for the tender, and that the chain won after practicing tactics and that choosing the chain’s bid would lead to harm to competition, privacy and equality between bidders. Based on these allegations, Pethon Lev sought to cancel Shufersal’s win in the tender.
Pethon Lev’s helpline, those photographed have no connection to the news (Photo: Pethon Lev)As part of the tender, the bidders were required to offer points of sale in which the purchase tokens that the Ministry of the Interior intends to distribute will be honored. An in-depth inspection conducted by Pethon Lev revealed that dozens of points of sale that Shufersal presented in the tender documents did not receive any application from it and some of them do not even exist. Shufersal won the tender thanks to the high number of distribution points that it made available to the subject – 1,627 in number with Pethon Lev in second place.
The petition states that “as part of the tender, Shufersal sought to deviate from any accepted principle in tender law, competition law and privacy protection and sought to base a bid based on tact and bad faith, in order to get the tenders committee to declare it a winner and in fact allow Shufersal to take over a wide project. It’s dimensions. “
Prior to the submission of the petition and the submission of warning letters by Pethon Lev, the Ministry of the Interior announced that the tender had been suspended until the end of the inspections, but soon reversed its decision and declared Shufersal the sole winner. This morning, as stated, Pethon Lev filed the petition, in order to correct the injustice and the deficiencies that were presented.
Eli Cohen, CEO of Pethon Lev, said: “Minister Deri and the Ministry of the Interior have initiated the largest social project in the country’s history and at exactly the right time. But since then, someone along the way has gotten confused and caused harm to the general public. The victims are the target audience, who will surely receive the assistance from an aid organization, with experience in providing such an important service to those entitled, and not from a commercial network, the retail audience and the Israeli public. A government tender concerning aid to the needy which is delivered, exclusively, to a commercial body should exclude sleep from the eyes of decision makers and the entire public. We call on the Ministry of the Interior to correct the injustices and shortcomings and to launch this important flagship project in a proper, professional and decent manner. “
The Shufersal chain responded: “Shufersal, in cooperation with ICC, won the Ministry of the Interior tender after the tenders committee found that the quality solution offered by Shufersal, based on the clearing platform of the international brand VISA, as well as its financial offer for the tender, are the best claims. Lev Shufersal’s attractive offer is expected to increase sales at points of sale as well as at Shufersal’s branches. Competitively, Shufersal allows points of sale to compete with its customers, while bearing ownership. The tender (at the full amount of the discount) for them and therefore it is clear that there is no harm to the competition but vice versa. Shufersal is aware of other bidders’ attempts to sabotage its winning and that they are not sick of any claim, including claims of competition law violation or harm to competition. “The results do their best to thwart the move in inappropriate ways. Shufersal will continue the process and we are proud of our choice and the ability to carry out this important project.”