Insights & News

Adv. Ilan Blumenfeld, a partner in Barnea's Antitrust Department, participated in a panel discussion on proposed amendments to the Antitrust Law for Haaretz's "Echad Ha'am" magazine (pages 16–19).

Our firm is hosting today a student delegation from Handong Global University. The students are visiting Israel from South Korea.

Our Head of our Employment Department, is participating today in a training program held by the People Management Association. She will lecture on legal issues in the recruiting process.

Adv. Ariella Dreyfuss will lecture today at the Ben-Gurion University Innovation Program on the topics of founders' agreements, IP, and investment agreements.

Barnea is hosting an ICOs and digital currencies event today. Dr. Zvi Gabbay will lecture on regulation opportunities and challenges, while Harel Perlmutter will discuss the taxation of cryptographic coins and the Tax Authority's position.

Roni Lish, the minority shareholder in the franchise company of the French culinary brand Fauchon, is suing his partner in the franchise. Roni claims his partner acted to reduce the value of the company in order to control it and to remove him from the company. Roni Lish is represented by Advs. Zohar Lande and Gilli Cohen-Arazi of our firm's Litigation Department.

Yuval Lazi, a partner in our Technology Department, will lecture today to the participants of the Tel Aviv University Student Union's Elite Entrepreneurship Program on shareholder agreements and startups' Cinderella stories.

Following a bill promoted by the Israel Securities Authority, and passed by the Knesset, outlawing binary options trading by Israeli companies, Yukom Communications LTD and its controlling shareholder, Yossi Herzog, filed a petition to the High Court of Justice. Overseeing the filing of the petition were Barnea attorneys Zohar Lande, Eyal Nachshon, and Moran Bickel.

The High Court of Justice ruled in a temporary order that the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council should explain why it did not announce RGE as the winner of the tender for the operation of the Knesset Channel, following the disqualification of Channel 20's offer. RGE is represented by Advs. Zohar Lande, Ronen Reingold, Adi Shoham, and Itay Hatam of our firm's Litigation Department.

Adv. Micky Barnea, our firm's managing partner, was interviewed by Globes on the major events that have taken place in Israel's capital market in the past year: the re-emergence of initial public offerings on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, the Bezeq affair, and ICOs.

Dr. Zvi Gabbay, Head of our Capital Markets Department, has published an article in Financial Magnates. It discusses the Israel Securities Authority's approach to Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) and cryptocurrencies and how this approach compares to other jurisdictions.

An interview following the Ministry of Economy and Industry's recently published draft bill placing restrictions on telemarketing.

Following the Panama Papers leak, Israeli authorities have arrested two Israelis on suspicion of evading millions of shekels in tax payments by using companies registered in offshore tax havens. Harel Perlmutter, a partner and head of Barnea's Tax Department, commented to Bloomberg BNA that even though many Israelis were named in the leaked documents, most of them appear to have been using the offshore havens for reasons other than tax evasion.

Dr. Zvi Gabbay, head of our firm's Capital Markets Department, gave several media interviews (in Heb) following the Israel Securities Authority Chairman's remarks that companies whose values are based on bitcoin will not be included in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's (TASE) indices until a suitable regulatory framework is established. Zvi noted it is important to distinguish between the inclusion of companies engaged in trading and investing in virtual currencies on TASE's indices and the possibility that such companies will actually be traded on TASE.

Our firm represented Guy Aharonovski in a lawsuit against his former partner in CoinDash, a platform for managing investments in cryptographic currencies. Aharonovski is claiming his former partner disqualified him from his share in the company, founded Queen-Dash behind his back, and issued tokens called CDT that enabled the use of the platform provided by the company.

Barnea represented Israeli startup EXO Technologies, a developer of GPS technology for autonomous and connected vehicle applications, in its acquisition by the American corporation Lear.

The Ministry of Finance has decided to discontinue horse racing in Israel starting on January 1, 2018. Adv. Zohar Lande, the head of our firm's Litigation Department, represented GBI Racing, the British company that provides betting services to Toto, in negotiations with the Ministry of Finance.

Micky Barnea was interviewed by TheMarker regarding the effects on Israeli corporate tax following the U.S. Senate's approval of tax cuts that would lower the corporate rate to 20% from 35%, a move that has left Israel’s headline rate three percentage points higher.

Adv. Yuval Lazi, a partner in our firm's Technology Department, is taking part in a special delegation of Israeli investors. The investors are traveling to Belgrade, Serbia for the first time to become acquainted with the Serbian startup ecosystem.