The Antitrust Commission and the Justice Ministry examined on Monday the legality of 171 tenders offered for the purchase of properties in Kfar Chabad, a community in situated near the Ben Gurion Airport, to which only one bid was submitted for each tender.
In the vast majority of the 171 tenders that the Israel Lands Administration (ILA) published two months ago, the bid was close to the minimum price required by the ILA - ranging from NIS 177,000 to NIS 208,000. The prices offered were lower in comparison with similar properties in the area.The tender was limited only to Chabad movement members, who had obtained the authorization of the community. Furthermore, all the bids were won without any objection.
The Antitrust Commission and the Justice Ministry are examining a possible coordination among village residents to assure the tender results. They are also checking the possibility that private individuals who united to create a cartel violated the Antitrust Law, or if police should launch a probe to investgate the handing of the tenders.
Other properties, on which four-story buildings are to be built, were also included in the tenders. All of their bids were made by groups of families which offered bids only several hundred shekels above the opening bid.
The Chairman of Kfar Chabad council, Yami Lifshitz, denied allegations that the purchase of properties was coordinated. [I guess if one can believe that a dead man is both the messiah and Divine, believing that these purchases were not coordinated isn't that far-fetched. After all, who cares about truth in Chabad Land?]
Read it all here.