Client updates

The Supreme Court of India recently ruled that the right to privacy is an integral part of the right to life and personal liberty enshrined in the Indian constitution, and as such is entitled to the same legal protection.

The Ministry of Communications has appointed a tender committee to formulate and draw up a tender for the allocation of a spectrum for the provision of advanced cellular services.

Several new updates regarding lifting the corporate veil, calculating severance pay for hourly employees and issuing electronic pay slips.

Israel’s government recently set forth a decision approving the key points of a national “safe identification” policy. The purpose of this policy is to define how a person’s identity is to be verified when receiving government services in a digital mode, in order to improve the services being provided to residents, and to simplify the access to these services.

An amendment to the Consumer Protection Law was enacted recently, regulating the ways by which consumers can cancel transactions and imposing obligations on businesses to disclose to consumers how they can cancel transactions.

The Knesset recently approved Amendment No. 5 to the Regulation of Nonbank Loans Law, which is now called the Fair Lending Law. This comes after years of deliberations and in the long wake of recommendations submitted in 2013 to increase competition in the banking system.

The Israeli Law, Information and Technology Authority (ILITA) recently published a new draft directive regarding the handling of customers’ personal information (which is organized as a registered database or as a database under compulsory registration) when it is held by an acquiree company and is being transferred to the acquirer company within the scope of a merger or acquisition transaction. 

In July 2017, the Fair Rent Law was enacted, an initiative of MPs Stav Shaffir and Roy Folkman. The main objectives of the New Law are to regulate the relationship between tenants and landlords and to define the minimum conditions for an apartment to be deemed “fit for dwelling.”

One of the key privacy protection issues in Israel is whether and to what extent the activities of an Israeli company may be subject to foreign privacy protection laws. This question has become of critical importance since the enactment of the General Data Protection Regulations in the European Union.

A significant precedent was handed down recently by the Israeli Supreme Court, whereby a company’s separate and independent standing must be recognized, even after a motion for a derivative suit has been approved.

Recently, the UK government pledged to introduce a new Data Protection Bill. The proposed bill will uphold the UK’s commitment to applying the privacy principles enshrined in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) despite the Brexit process.

Recently, the Knesset approved an amendment to the Supervision of Financial Services Law, which regulates the activities of online lending platforms that broker between people and businesses under a peer-to-peer (P2P) model.

In early July 2017, the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee approved the elimination of the compulsory registration fees and periodic fees paid by database owners.

Recently, the Israeli Antitrust Authority (IAA) published a final version of its statement regarding Resale Price Maintenance (RPM) arrangements. In this statement, the IAA presents its position with regard to the circumstances under which a supplier is able to dictate the resale price of its products to its distributor (either retail or wholesale) for the next link in the supply chain, without such an arrangement being considered an illegal restrictive arrangement.

Recently, ILITA (the Israel Law, Information and Technology Authority) published new guidelines addressing the interpretation and implementation of provisions of the Protection of Privacy Law relating to direct mail and direct-mail services.

Recently, the Israeli Attorney General, in a legal opinion filed with the Israeli Supreme Court as part of an appeal filed by Facebook, opined that foreign companies (specifically those that do business via the internet) may not escape Israeli court jurisdiction even if the terms and conditions posted on their website state otherwise.

New rules came into effect recently that constitute an amendment and update of the principal rules addressing industrial wastewater flowing from factories into the sewer system.

On June 2017, the government of Israel approved a draft bill to amend the Securities Law that is intended to tip the scales in the battle being waged in the financial trading sector over binary options.

New court decision on transfer pricing taxation may shift structuring of M&A transactions from shares to assets.

Precedent set by the Tel-Aviv District Court rules that a bank may refuse to provide service to a company engaging in virtual currencies.