The landscaping company got into financial and legal trouble - due to forged landfill permits they provided it (Photo: ShutterStock)
An issue that recently arose in the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court dealt with a claim by a landfill company against a landscaping company to which it provided services, due to non-receipt of payment for the performance of the work, as it claimed was stipulated in the contract.
On the other hand, according to the defendant company, the landfill company presented it with forged landfill permits, and as a result, caused it to violate the employment contract it closed with the Tel Aviv municipality, and lose payment in the amount of NIS 1 million.
The bone of contention between the parties revolved around the question: Should the removal company have submitted permits for removal and burial of waste to the landscaping company as part of the contract signed between them?
The story that led to the lawsuit
The contract between the companies began in 2018, when the landscaping company won the Tel Aviv municipality's tender for gardening throughout the city. Following its win in the tender, a contract was signed between the landscaping company and the removal company - for the removal of waste from the project.
Although the contract between the companies does not explicitly state that the evacuation company must present landfill permits as a condition for payment, it does state that the evacuation company is obligated to comply with all the provisions of the tender, on the basis of which the landscaping company signed a work agreement with the Tel Aviv municipality.
According to attorney Regev Elkayam of the Sharaf law firm, who represented the gardening company in the lawsuit, at some point, a complaint was filed with the police about forging landfill permits against the landfill company. The police investigation revealed that the removal company tried to defraud the Tel Aviv municipality with the quantities of waste it supposedly removed, and provided forged landfill permits for this purpose.
Following the discovery of the forgery, the Tel Aviv municipality refused to pay the gardening company more than 90% of the consideration promised to it. According to Adv. Elkayam, following the non-payment, the gardening company found itself in a crisis.
Following the failure to present landfill permits legally, the landscaping company canceled the payment to the removal company, and also canceled a number of checks it had already given it. In response, the evacuation company filed its lawsuit, against the gardening company and its owners, in the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court.
What did the court rule?
Judge Carmela Haft accepted the position of the landscaping company and its owners, and ruled that the terms of the Tel Aviv municipality's work order formed part of the contract between the plaintiff and the defendant.
The judge stated in her ruling that "the contract between the municipality and the landscaping company expressly conditions the payment of consideration to the landscaping company on the presentation of landfill permits, while the contract between the plaintiff and the defendant adopted the terms of the contract between the defendant and the municipality."
At the hearing, the manager of the waste disposal company claimed that the terms of the tender were not presented to him at the time the contract was signed, and that his company did not undertake to meet the requirements of the Tel Aviv municipality in the tender. He also claimed that it was agreed orally between him and the owners of the landscaping company that his work would be carried out without the need to present landfill permits.
Judge Haft dismissed his statement, ruling that all of his claims were completely contrary to what was stated in the contract, were based on oral summaries, and constituted in fact occupied testimony. In addition, she noted that if there was indeed an oral agreement that there was no need to present landfill permits, why did the removal company transfer the forged landfill permits to the landscaping company?
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The court accepted the claims of the defendant company (Photo: ShutterStock)
Judge Haft concluded her ruling that "there is no debt of the defendant to the plaintiff, and that the plaintiff has not fulfilled its contractual obligation to provide a landfill permit."
According to her, the opinion does not give that the landscaping company, which did not receive money from the municipality for work carried out by the waste removal company, will pay the removal company the consideration according to the contract between them.
At the same time, the court rejected the request to "lift the curtain" from the landscaping company, which would allow the waste disposal company to descend on the private property of the owner of the landscaping company, in order to repay the debt. Thus, Judge Haft accepted Adv. Elkayam's arguments and ruled that even if it were determined that there is a debt of the gardening company to the waste removal company, the owner of the landscaping company is not a party to the contract signed between the two companies.
In addition to dismissing the lawsuit, Judge Haft ordered the waste disposal company to pay NIS 20,<> in court costs. Her ruling was not appealed.
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