Israeli Natural Gas Cartel Seeking Testimony From Top Treasury Officials About Gas Deal - HAARETZ

Nov 06, 2017 4:36 AMIdo Baum 
Noble Energy fighting class action suit over gas prices agreed between cartel and Israel Electric Corporation

One of the partners in the Tamar natural gas field cartel, Noble Energy, is seeking to subpoena three senior Israeli government officials to testify in Central District Court for a hearing over a class action suit against the cartel.

The officials are Shaul Meridor – the outgoing director general of the Energy Ministry – who was chosen to head the Finance Ministry’s budget division; Udi Adiri, the outgoing deputy head of the budget division, who is slated to switch places with Meridor and be the next director general of the Energy Ministry; and Morris Dorfman, who was deputy head of the National Economic Council and now serves as head of the Health Ministry’s regulatory division.

All three played key roles in putting together the framework agreement two years ago.

According to the subpoena request filed last week, cartel officials believe these witnesses can shed light on the fact that the natural gas price in Israel was set under Israel’s authority.

Israel Tamar faces $13 billion class action - NATURAL GAS WORLD

November 24th, 2016, 8:55amYa'acov Zalel

An Israeli district court rejected November 23 a petition by the Tamar Partnership to dismiss a class action law suit alleging monopolistic pricing of natural gas in Israel. The district court rejected the request in a preliminary hearing. Now the court will have to hold a hearing whether to approve the class action before it goes to a full trial. The process can be quite lengthy as the class action was filed almost two and half years ago and the trial hasn’t started yet.

The plaintiffs estimated that the excess cost for the Israeli customers is NIS 2.5bn ($630 mn)/yr and asked the court to order Tamar partners to compensate the customers and reduce prices. The estimated excess cost for the duration of the contract was estimated at NIS 26.8-43.7 bn.

Israel's monopoly faces class action - NATURAL GAS EUROPE

July 12th, 2016

An Israeli District Court will decide in the next few days whether to approve a class action against the Israeli gas monopoly. The class action was submitted by two advocates, Gillad Barnea and Yitzhak Yaari, who are demanding that the gas monopoly repays NIS2.5bn ($640mn) for every year of gas supply to electricity customers because of exorbitant pricing of natural gas.

The class action was submitted in 2014. The plaintiffs argued that the partners exploited their monopolistic position to sell gas at two or three times the fair price and in doing so have broken the anti-trust law.