The Barnea Jaffa Lande Blog

The Italian Mafia, Interpol and unrecovered billions: the global battle over organized crime money

February 11, 2025 / by Shir Rozenzweig

In early January 2025, Interpol published its first Silver Notice seeking information about assets held worldwide by a senior member of the Italian mafia. The Silver Notice is the latest addition to Interpol’s suite of color-coded notices, the most well-known of which is the Red Notice seeking the arrest of wanted persons. The purpose of the Silver Notice is to identify and recover assets obtained during the commission of criminal offenses in order to combat money laundering and cross-border organized crime. Through this notice, countries can request information to locate assets (including vehicles, financial accounts, crypto wallets and businesses) that are linked to a person’s (and not a corporation’s) suspected criminal offenses, such as fraud, corruption, terrorism, cybercrime, drug trafficking and other serious offenses. Countries may subsequently use such information as a basis for requests for seizure, confiscation or recovery of assets linked to such offenses, 99% of which, according to Interpol’s Secretary-General, remain unrecovered to date. In other words, a Silver Notice may be published in order to combat a wide variety of offenses, such as to obtain information about the assets of a company whose employees committed Internet fraud; or about assets smuggled by a senior member of a criminal organization who is suspected of bribing a public servant to promote the organization’s criminal businesses. The Silver Notice application is currently in its pilot phase (which was launched in December 2023 and will run until at least November 2025), in which Fifty-two countries are participating (Israel is not a participant). The launch of the pilot phase and the first decision in this matter, demonstrate that Interpol has set an important goal for itself of fighting intetnational organized crime by targeting the sources of funding for criminal organizations. The recognition that targeting profits and financial means is an effective tool for fighting international organized crime is not new, and was actually used frequently against the Hamas terrorist organization after October 7, 2023. The Silver Notice may serve as an additional tool in the toolbox to disrupt criminal networks in such manner. In fact, it seems that already today, the United States, which is participating in the pilot and which last year filed an indictment against senior members of Hamas (most of whom have since been eliminated), can request the issue of a Silver Notice in order to locate their assets in other member states and subsequently request their confiscation. Similarly, at the end of the pilot phase, and to the extent that Interpol decides to include the Silver Notice in its permanent arsenal, the State of Israel will also be able to submit such a request, as well as similar requests targeting the economic infrastructure of senior members of other terrorist organizations. *** Adv. Shir Rozenzweig is an associate at Barnea, Jaffa, Lande & Co. specializing in white-collar crime and regulatory enforcement in Israel and abroad.

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Categories: White Collar

Phantom Stock: A Strategic Tool for Equity Incentivization

February 5, 2025 / by Ilan Blumenfeld , Shay Morhaim

In the contemporary landscape of talent management, organizations face major challenges in recruiting and retaining top-tier professionals. Equity incentive mechanisms have emerged as a sophisticated strategy to cultivate employee loyalty and align organizational performance with individual motivation.

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Categories: Corporate

Ten Q&A About Investment Management and Consulting Without a License

January 16, 2025 / by Eran Elharar

Recently, several cases of unlicensed investment management and consulting have made headlines. These include an instance where an administrative fine of NIS 130,000 was imposed for unlicensed investment management, and another case that led to an indictment. Such cases highlight the importance of understanding the legal rules and requirements in this field.

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Categories: Enforcement/white collar | Regulation

Regulated payment services and financial services in Israel – summary and outlook for 2025

January 1, 2025 / by Eran Elharar , Ori Rodriguez

2024 was characterized by a multitude of regulatory directives to payment companies and to payment initiation companies as part of the preparations for the licensing obligation that came into effect in June 2024.

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Categories: FinTech | Regulation

Unregulated Trust Mechanisms

December 5, 2024 / by Gal Livshits

We tend to think of a “trust” as a regulated contractual mechanism that people create through an agreement, a letter of authorization to a trustee etc. But is it possible to become part of a trust arrangement without it being formally regulated? The (perhaps surprising) answer is unequivocally “yes.”

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Categories: Corporate | Litigation | Private Clients

Tax innovations in Israel during 2024

October 10, 2024 / by Harel Perlmutter , Maya Carmi Lubartovski

Over the past year, alongside handling the economic repercussions of the war and issuing financial assistance to war victims and to evacuees, the courts, the legislative authority and the Israel Tax Authority continued their efforts in the legislative arena and issued several significant tax rulings. Following are the most important innovations relating to income tax, real estate tax and VAT.

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Categories: Tax

Retail Fintech 2024: Key Trends and Growth Insights

October 10, 2024 / by Barnea

Venture capital investments in the retail fintech sector rebounded significantly during the second half of 2024, with investments reaching USD 4.5 billion. PitchBook’s latest report indicates that the market is identifying new opportunities in companies focusing on the retail sector and is introducing refreshing innovations in retail. The report presents several interesting insights and findings and provides an in-depth perspective on the retail fintech sector and its impact on the retail industry.

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Categories: Regulation

Regulation in the 2024: A Summary of Key Changes and Outlook for the Future

September 18, 2024 / by Zvi Gabbay , Ran Karmi , Avishay Klein

Several statutory arrangements and regulatory guidelines have been published thus far during 2024, particularly in relation to the capital market, the financial sector and privacy protection, as well as various circulars addressing corporate governance and risk management, with the objective of increasing certainty for businesses and for the public as a whole.

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Categories: Regulation

Regulatory highlights for small and medium-sized businesses

September 16, 2024 / by Ori Rodriguez

There has been a growing outcry recently against the ease at which class actions alleging a variety of offenses are being filed against small and medium-sized business-owners. Almost every week since October 7, news media have been reporting about business owners who were called up for reserve duty, spent months defending the country, and who, upon returning home after completing their tour of duty, are then forced to fight in the courts because a warning letter was waiting for them with a demand for high sums of compensation. Much has been written about this and about the impacts that such demand letters have on reservists – personally and at the business level. And as reported, this issue should be examined by the legislative authorities.

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Categories: Regulation

Tax Benefits to NGOs in Israel and “Public Purposes”

August 28, 2024 / by Sagi Gross

In order to promote the activities of NGOs, and to encourage donors to donate to these public benefit institutions, the State of Israel is granting them unique tax benefits, subject to the fulfillment of defined criteria.

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Categories: Corporate

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