Client updates

The monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions is not only important for protecting environmental quality, but it also offers commercial benefits, such as monitoring energy and supply chain expenses and participating in carbon emissions trading markets. 

The update will take effect already in the salaries for April 2023 and will affect the sums of social contributions to provident funds and severance pay, vacation pay, overtime pay, and sick pay.

A few months after ChatGPT became a popular tool for millions of users, users began filing lawsuits alleging violations of users’ privacy and data security breaches. The conclusions from these lawsuits are relevant to all companies engaging in the development and assimilation of AI technologies.

At the conclusion of a proceeding conducted over about two years, an Israeli court recommended that the class plaintiffs withdraw their actions in light of the legal difficulties and since there is no reasonable possibility that the legal questions will be  ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs accepted the court’s recommendation, and the court dismissed in limine 66 class actions.

The Ministry of Finance and the Histadrut (General Federation of Labor in Israel) reached some understandings regarding the framework agreement for the public sector for the years 2020 to 2027.

A corporate inversion is a process of changing a company’s holding structure, largely with the intention of turning an existing company into a foreign company by positioning a foreign company as a parent company of the Israeli company and enabling the Israeli company to expand into new markets in the international arena.

Employers must be diligent about complying with Israeli labor law and case law when dismissing employees, even during layoffs and reorganization processes, including employees’ statutory rights to a dismissal hearing with their lawyer present.

The Interior Ministry has once again extended its policy of not taking enforcement measures against the employment of Ukrainian citizens who are in Israel because of the war in Ukraine.

Preparing reports on an accrual basis and adjusting them to a cash basis for tax purposes was an acceptable practice until the Israel Tax Authority (the “ITA”) determined otherwise. However, many companies still prepare two sets of reports, sometimes resulting in problems with the ITA.

A regional labor court found an employer’s conduct did not comply with the law’s provisions on proper termination, and also harmed a longtime employee’s good name.

Notwithstanding growing awareness and the measures being taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (as part of Israel’s commitment under the Paris Agreement), the emerging Arrangements Law could cause a regression in environmental legislation and hinder efforts to protect Israel’s population from environmental hazards.

From now on, recipients of contract workers’ services must periodically review the wages paid to the service contractor’s employees working on their premises, set up a mechanism for clarifying workers’ grievances, and fulfill a series of other obligations designed to protect contract workers’ rights.

The draft of Israel’s Arrangements Law – Economic Plan for 2023-2024 addresses digital assets extensively for the first time. The draft bill contains a section dedicated to the regulation of digital assets and addresses stablecoins, taxation issues, the banking system, DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) and more.

The Israel Competition Authority is imposing a stricter policy against resale price maintenance arrangements, and increases enforcement in this area, to make the market more competitive.

The Israeli government is continuing to amend the Competition Law with the intention of curbing the cost of living. In the crosshairs are direct importers, who will be subject to strict scrutiny once the amendments are enacted.

Everyone knows Adidas’s famous three parallel stripes logo, including US fashion designer Thom Browne. Despite this, Browne introduced a parallel stripes motif in his designs. In 2021, Adidas sued him for breaching its intellectual property rights. Last month, a Manhattan jury found Thom Browne did not commit trademark infringement and that Adidas would have to make do with ownership of only the three-stripe design.

The more artificial intelligence permeates additional spheres of private and public life, the greater the need to regulate uses of this technology. Various artificial intelligence regulations are already in place around the world and additional regulatory initiatives are being promoted at a rapid pace.

The Israel Securities Authority recently published a proposal for a series of legislative amendments relating to digital (cryptographic) assets, whose implications go beyond the realm of digital assets and do not herald much good news for Israeli crypto ventures.

A new Supreme Court ruling reverses a district court decision, while imposing heightened liability and an enhanced duty to disclose information on “on paper” apartment sellers.

The Israeli Ministry of Finance and the Competition Authority are pushing to introduce a plan in the annual Economic Arrangements Law that would impose significant restrictions on importers and suppliers of major brands, with the aim of reducing concentration and increasing competition in the food and toiletries market in Israel.