MKs applaud antitrust commissioner’s move to review Leviathan gas players
Knesset members and social activists voiced support for Antitrust Commissioner David Gilo on Monday, who last week announced his intentions to reevaluate whether the Leviathan gas reservoir developers constitute a cartel.
In a surprise announcement last Tuesday, Gilo said that a proposed consent decree regarding the entry of the Delek Group and Noble Energy into Leviathan would not be submitted to the Antitrust Tribunal for approval as had been agreed upon earlier this year. The proposed decree would have allowed the two companies, which are the main partners in both the Leviathan and neighboring Tamar gas reservoirs, to remain in the basins without being defined as a cartel.
At a special session held in the Knesset on Monday afternoon, initiated by MK Shelly Yachimovich (Labor), Knesset members and activists attacked the two companies and encouraged Gilo and dismantle the monopoly.
"Gilo will be subject to the constant attack of gas tycoons, and it is our duty to protect him," Yachimovich said. "He understood that he could not carry on his shoulders such a shame, scandal and theft of this magnitude."