Q. Moshe Ronen
A. We were all lawyer, we were all on call we had, I was a lawyer and he understood my instructions, there was no need I think to scribe a rejection of something. Our e-mails were intending to be the ones related to positive instructions or the negotiations that we focused on at that point was the retainer letter, that was really my job.
Q. Did you advise Mr. Asper that it would be better to put in written your rejection of that?
A. No because we were all in the same call I think we all understood that the game plan was dismissed out of hand, and I did not advise Mr. Asper per se that was required because Moti Morel acknowledged during the telephone call that the instructions were not to engage in the game plan.
Q. But as the legal councilor of the group did you not find it necessary to, to take measurements that Mr. Morel does not act apparently authorized by you doing what you did not want him to do?
A. I didn’t, and to the point Mr. Morel didn’t engage in the promise attached to the game plan. If in fact he had started to engage in elements of the game plan you can be damn sure that I would have instructed him accordingly. But he understood very methodically what it is that we want."
אספר הוסיף בחקירתו הנגדית והעיד כי הוא כלל לא ראה בתכנית המשחק עניין רציני הדורש התייחסות עניינית, אלא בדיחה, מעין "סרט הוליוודי" דמיוני. על כן, הסתפק בהסכם שכר הטרחה, אשר לשיטתו מהווה מסמך כתוב הדוחה את תכנית המשחק וכן בדברים שנאמרו בשיחת הוועידה הטלפונית, ובלשונו (שם, עמ' 92 ש' 16 עד עמ' 93 ש' 11):
"A. As far as I am concerned, the rejection of that plan was the retainer letter, the written rejection, the written rejection of that plan was the retainer letter because I said to Richard this is a joke, this is out of a Hollywood movie, forget it, draft something in our terms that reflects what we really want which is to get our side of the story out, so the first three paragraphs of that, A, B and C of that letter I think is what we wanted to do and the rest of it was, you know, not what we wanted to do, and not only that, you talk about all of these thousands of emails, hundreds of e-mails there is no e-mails about Knesset and tax things and police or anything like that, so not only did we reject it, we produced a retainer letter that I told Richard to draft in response to his proposed retainer letter, he sent one, we said no and we did our own drafting of that letter which reflected exactly what we want and then we did exactly what we wanted and we did nothing more, and we didn’t we did nothing further in that game plan, that’s the, I think the best proof that we rejected it."
--- סוף עמוד 23 ---
בעדותו טען אספר כי הסכם שכר הטרחה הוא שגיבש את ההבנות וההסכמות בין הצדדים ולא תכנית המשחק. להלן אבחן הסכם זה.
ג. הסכם שכר הטרחה מיום 3.2.05 (נ/7)
הסכם שכר הטרחה מנוסח כמכתב של מוטי מורל למר לייפסיק. מדובר בהסכם כללי, נראה שמדובר בנוסח אחיד. המטרות מוגדרות באופן כללי כגיבוש אסטרטגיה תקשורתית, מחקר ופעולות חקירה. יש לציין כי התובעים מוגדרים במכתב זה: "המטרה" "the target", באופן שעולה בקנה אחד עם תכנית המשחק. לייפסיק נחקר בעניין זה, כדלקמן (עמ' 84 ש' 10 עד עמ' 86 ש' 13):
"Q. And let's see how you relate to Merkai Tikshoret group the target. So lets see the spirit of this document, this is not we CanWest as you Moti Morel to give us good publication in Israel visa vi Merkai Tikshoret but we have a target here, we are still hunting the same as in the game plan… we have a target here, somebody to hunt?
A. It’s a use of, it’s a use of the word. It was not, as I described earlier this was not right in conjunction with the game plan. It was meant to be the document that was going to be the directing element and instructions.
Q. So why use target?
A. You know what? It was his version, I got the impression this was a typical kind of Israeli kind of terminology I didn’t take exception to it per se at the time, and obviously he was the initial drafter of the document, I didn’t draft the document initially it came into him that’s the word he used, I tried to make as few changes to the document as possible that didn’t cause me issue, if Merkai tikshoret group wants to defined as MTG or target it was really not a relevant component, I looked at the draft that he had submitted?
Q. Mr. Lypsick you, you truly are a well experienced lawyer, a long time council for the CanWest group, and you were just saying that you were wording this letter together with Mr. Morel and you were just saying that this letter was among other things meaning to, intending to, to soften that game plan that was made the other day and still you missed the word target in this paper, you are saying you are telling us that this is the expression of Mr. Morel?
A. I, I try to take a particular element in terms of my drafting and that is if somebody want to take pride of authorship I will let them do that, I don’t find any particular need other than the substance?
Q. Nobody wants to take credit from you concerning this document.
A. So if he wanted to use a particular word I wasn’t going to go back and word smith it beyond the point of making the important components of the documents speak properly."
הסבר זה לפיו מדובר אך בניסוח שאין לו משמעות אין לקבל. כזכור, הנתבעים לא דחו מפורשות את תכנית המשחק וגרסתם הייתה כי אמרו למורל תקשורת ללכת בדרך המלך, ובכך דחו לכאורה את תכנית המשחק. הנתבעים הם שטענו כי הסכם שכר הטרחה הוא הרלבנטי, ועולה ממנו דחית תכנית המשחק. במצב דברים, זה כינוי מרקעי תקשורת כמטרה, מביא למסקנה ההפוכה. היינו,
--- סוף עמוד 24 ---
כי הייתה תכנית והייתה מטרה וכי הנתבעים היו שבעי רצון מהתכנית. לייפסיק נחקר בעניין זה, כדלקמן (עמ' 75 ש' 22 עד עמ' 76 ש' 7):
"Q. So apparently without hearing what you are saying to us now, that you rejected out of hand the game plan and having no e-mail or letter to Moti Morel to support that, my conclusion is that you got a game plan, you were content with that you signed a retainer fee with Moti Morel and among all those hundreds of letters and e-mails you cannot find any paper to refute that, am I correct to say that the only thing against that is what you are telling us right now?
A. If you look at the retainer letter it talks about a subsequent game plan being provided…"
ובהמשך (עמ' 77 ש' 8 עד עמ' 78 ש' 11):
"Q. Now, again, you got this a day after you got the game plan. Because it’s dated February 2 and this is February 3rd so, I guess the telephone conversation was somewhere in the middle.
A. Yes.
Q. And you get this second letter which is totally not detailed but saying something very general, so how do you think we can be convinced out of this letter that you rejected out of hand all the detail letter, it doesn’t say anything other than that. The detail letter contains also parts of this, it’s not saying in refer to this we are doing only this and not that or any other wording that suggest that you didn’t take the whole deal, the only thing that it says that you will get something else or as you go by you will get a … or?
A. And there was never any,
Q. Direction,
A. Yes and this talked about a game plan coming in the future, never had one, we never had any further exploration of the game plan we never had any amendments to the game plan, we never had conversations about the game plan, we never had any e-mails about the game plan, and the point is reason we didn’t is that we were able to confirm without any equivocation during the call we weren’t going to do any of that, there was no ever need because we never had a continuing dialogue of any sort about the game plan."
כלומר, העד למעשה טוען כי ההסכם מפנה לפירוט עתידי (outline of the project) ולדבריו, תכנית משחק עתידית כזו לא הוכנה, ולכן כל שעליו הסכימו הצדדים הוא אותו הסכם (נ/7).
דווקא העובדה שמהסכם שכר הטרחה ברור שנדרשת תכנית מפורטת, מביאה אותי למסקנה ההפוכה, לפיה תכנית המשחק היא זו שאומצה בהסכם שכר הטרחה. יש לציין כי מר אספר בעדותו בבוררות (עמ' 630-631 לפרוטוקול) ציין, שקודם נחתם הסכם שכר הטרחה, ואחר כך התקבלה תכנית המשחק. איני שוקלת זאת לחובתו של מר אספר, שכן מדובר באירועים שאירעו לפני שנים, כאשר יתכן כי אינו זוכר את סדר הדברים. אולם הדבר מחזק את מסקנתי כי הסכם שכר הטרחה לא עמד לבדו ונלוותה לו תכנית מפורטת. כיוון שאין כל תכנית מפורטת אחרת, ואין כל התייחסות לתכנית המשחק, המסקנה המתבקשת היא כי הסכם שכר הטרחה אמץ למעשה את תכנית המשחק.
--- סוף עמוד 25 ---
יש לציין לעניין זה כי לייפסיק ואספר העידו, כי הסכם שכר הטרחה נוסח על ידי מר מורל ואחר כך הועבר לעיונם לצורך עריכת תיקונים (פרוטוקול מיום 9.1.12 עמ' 83 ש' 16 עד עמ' 84 ש' 1; עמ' 85 ש' 9 עד עמ' 86 ש' 13; עמ' 92 ש' 16 עד עמ' 93 ש' 11). סביר להניח כי הדבר ארך זמן מה, כך שהנוסח הראשוני של הסכם שכר הטרחה הועבר לעיונם של לייפסיק ואספר עוד בטרם התקבלה תכנית המשחק. על כן, ההתייחסות בהסכם הייתה לתכנית משחק עתידית.
הסכם שכר הטרחה מעגן את הפרקטיקה עליה העיד מוטי מורל, לפיה נעשה שימוש במסע יחסי ציבור כדי להכניע צד למשא ומתן. הסכם הטרחה קבע תשלום חודשי של 10,000$ וכן בונוס על הצלחה.
על טיבו של הבונוס הנזכר בהסכם שכר הטרחה נחקר אספר, כדלקמן (עמ' 107 ש' 2-10):
"Q... now as to your retainer agreement with Morel Tzur, you agreed upon some success fee for Morel Tzur right?
A.That’s correct
Q. What was the success you were referring to?
A. The success? The winning of the law suit or a satisfactory settlement. These are typical in public relations consultancy agreements and frankly it’s a way to keep the cost".
כלומר ישולם בונוס על הצלחה אם יזכו הנתבעים לבוררות או יגיעו להסדר מספק מבחינתם עם התובעים.
ובהמשך (עמ' 107 ש' 11 עד עמ' 108 ש' 21):
Q. I don’t understand, I asked that Moti Morel too …but is it a common practice when you have a law suit or arbitration, legal proceeding going on to take public relation office and say that a success is winning? I, I thought that a success in fees will be for a lawyer, but...
Q. But to take a public relation which relates to an outcome of a legal proceeding how do you explain that?
A. Well, it’s not just a legal proceeding, remember, it’s a legal proceeding and it could end up in a re-negotiation of the agreement, legal proceeding was one part of the ongoing dispute there were still conversations going on, Ayel, Golan was trying to reach out to either me or Richard or somebody and so we didn’t know where it was going to end and what the problem is with a law suit, you don’t know what the result is going to be and you don’t know who is responsible for actually making it successful, so whether investment bankers get success fees and you can argue about who did what to make it successful but to avoid that argument you just say everybody, if we win everybody gets a success fee, so its quite standard in, in Canadian, north American sense to have a PR firm while typically the agreement is you want to pay them less going in to avoid ongoing cost and you will be happy to pay them more if you are successful whether