The Ministry of Defense will keep on working with Berman Bakery

The District Court today rejected the petition of the Kiryat Shmona Regional Bakery, against the Ministry of Defense and the Berman Bakery.
In mid-June, the Kiryat Shmona Regional Bakery filed an urgent administrative petition in the Tel Aviv District Court demanding a freeze on the tender in which the Berman Bakery won the supply of bread to IDF bases, and on the continued supply of bread by the Kiryat Shmona bakery.
In the petition, the Kiryat Shmona regional bakery claimed that Berman - the second largest bakery in Israel - used its power as a large bakery and won the tender in a "loss-making, tactical and predatory" manner, then asked the Ministry of Economy to raise the price of supervised bread. Issued an interim injunction ordering the freeze on the tender, but now the decision has been overturned.
This is a petition to cancel Berman Bakery's win in a tender for the supply of breads and various bakery products to IDF units. In the tender, which was published about a year ago, Berman Bakery won two out of three possible spaces, while Spatial Bakery won only one. And pastry products for IDF units in the three existing areas in the IDF.
During the hearing of the petition, it emerged that the Ministry of Defense decided to go out to the new tender, while setting tender conditions according to which a bakery can win at most two spaces out of three, so as not to be dependent on only one bakery. Berman Bakery's offer was the lowest in all three spaces, but in view of the said limitation, it won only two spaces. In the remaining space a spatial bakery won because it is located on a confrontation line.
Following the publication of the results of the tender in November 2020, the bakery operated at the political level and in the Finance Committee, Spatial representatives raised claims that Berman Bakery's bid was loss-making and predatory, and was intended to push the Spatial Bakery off the bakery market and close it.
Meanwhile, at the request of a spatial bakery, the Competition Authority examined the spatial claims, and in March 2021 rejected them.
Last June, a regional bakery petitioned the district court demanding that the court order the rejection of Berman Bakery's bid on the grounds that it was a loser and a predator.
In its judgment, the district court dismissed the petition due to the heavy delay in filing it, many months after the period prescribed for doing so (45 days). In addition, the court ruled that the spatial bakery acted with a lack of hand hygiene when it refrained from attaching to the petition the decision of the Competition Authority from March 2021, which rejected its claims.
In addition, the spatial bakery's claims were also rejected in substance, when the District Court adopted the decisions of the Tenders Committee in the Ministry of Defense and the Competition Authority, that Berman Bakery's bid is not a loss, but includes significant profit, and also ruled that the tender did not fall invalid.