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Milad Aviation Ltd., an Israeli company, is claiming that Royal Jordanian Airlines negotiated in bad faith for many years, delaying the conclusion of a written agreement, and then hijacked the whole venture for themselves. Milad Aviation Ltd, represented by Adv. Zohar Lande, threatens lawsuit of NIS 20 million against Royal Jordanian Airlines. For the full article, please click here

Due to the many regulations, legal advisors and statements of claims, the directors of public companies do not know if it's their job to manage or supervise. Micky Barnea, a renowned figure in this field, was invited to be a member of a panel of experts to discuss the responsibility of the Board of Directors in the new era.

Corporate Live Wire held a Mergers Acquisition Roundtable  with five experts from around the world, including Simon Jaffa. The international Mergers Acquisition experts examined the latest changes and developments in each expert's respective jurisdiction. The mergers acquisition roundtable  provides in depth analysis of the latest trends in the MA arena. This included topics such as the main risks and challenges facing cross-border activity, tax implications and the strength of technology-based investment in Israel.

Recently, one of the most popular Facebook pages in Israel, by the name of "Twitting Statuses", was suspended and later permanently removed by Facebook. The reason for such action was that the operator of that page (the "Operator"), so it is understood, was paid to publish commercial content on that Facebook page, without going through the Facebook advertising system and without providing any due disclosure that such content was indeed paid for. It appears that the Operator offered various media packages to advertisers fixing prices based on different kinds of exposure on this page. After this manner of operation became public knowledge, Facebook suspended the page and a few days after that permanently removed it. Facebook stated that these actions were taken because the Operator had breached Facebook's terms and conditions. According to Facebook, the Operator received warnings about his manner of operation, but ignored them. Despite the Operator's efforts, which included going public with Facebook's actions and publishing a letter sent from him to the head of the Israeli office of Facebook, his efforts to change Facebook's decision were unsuccessful. Without getting into the legal spat between Facebook and the Operator, this turn of events proves the importance of following the terms and conditions of Facebook. All of the work and effort of the Operator will probably go down the drain, causing him substantial financial loss and diminution in value in connection with this Facebook page. And this is not something to trifle with - according to newspaper reports, the Operator, prior to this turn of events, asked to receive NIS 10,000,000 (approx. USD 2.5M) for the page and had 700,000 followers (and claimed to reach exposure of millions). Given the fact that this kind of business lives or dies on the existence of the Facebook page, and that it operates on a platform owned by a third party, it goes without saying that where the business is intended to generate followers and create value without adhering to the terms and conditions of the third party owned platform, it is reasonable to believe that sooner rather than later, such value will dissolve into thin air. Further,  where there are third party investors that are involved in such a business, this could establish a cause of action against the entrepreneur who used their investments for purposes of the business; where such a core fundamental element of the business is questionable, there is a possibility that the investors will seek to recover damages from the entrepreneur. So, entrepreneurs – pay close attention to the rules of any third party you rely on for the purpose of creating value for your business, failing which , you could expose yourself to financial difficulties on a number of fronts.

The Magistrate's Court in Tel Aviv accepted the claim of "Mika Benroy", a company  owned by Mr. Aviad Caspi, a former business development vice president of Whitewater Holdings. Caspi is also the  son in law of businessman, Edwin (Benny) Tish. Caspi submitted the claim  against  Whitewater Holdings, of which Uri Yogev is the founder and former Chairman of its Board of Directors . The Magistrate's Court decided that Whitewater Holdings must pay an amount of approximately 127 000 NIS to "Mika Benroy" (Caspi’s company) for services given to Whitewater Holdings, for which no consideration had been paid. The suit was filed by Adv. Zohar Lande, Adv. Shai Sharvit and Adv. Itay Wigoda from Barnea 

On  12 February 2015, Marie Tsion, head of employment law, will participate in the HR Managers Forum of the northern region. The forum includes CEO’s and HR managers of leading companies and meets once a month at the Upper Galilee Regional Council.

The new amendment to the Notice to Employee will require employers to give written responses to job applicants whether or not they have been hired. The new amendment will take effect at the end of January. Today, hiring procedures can include a number of in-house interviews, assessment centers and more. Thus the employee recruitment process has become increasingly longer. Candidates often have to wait lengthy periods before receiving a reply from employers and sometimes do not get a reply at all.  Candidates are left with considerable uncertainty regarding the important issue of pursuing a career. The amendment is intended to address these issues.

There is no doubt that Israel has a thriving high-tech industry. Israel has developed a high-tech eco-system that encompasses companies at various stages of development. It has also built up an extensive community of investors and development centers of international companies. The high-tech industry in the start-up nation has attracted and is attracting corporate giants from around the world to operate their development centers in Israel. This is done via the acquisition of Israeli companies or as part of a business strategy of creating a presence in Israel.

In 2014, the online gambling industry faced many challenges, mainly due to regulatory issues but also due unsatisfactory results in several jurisdictions with the US States of Nevada and New Jersey probably the most disappointing in this respect. According to our head of gambling practice, 2015 will probably be challenging as well. One reason for this is that the new legislation in England, which came into effect towards the end of 2014, requiring any online gambling operator offering is services in England to operate under an online gambling license issued by the local Gambling Commission, as well as pay a substantial gambling tax. For the full article, please Click here

Adv. Zohar Lande , senior partner and the head of the Litigation department at Barnea, was chosen by the prestigious "CorporateLiveWire " guide to the legal profession as "Lawyer of the year 2014" in Litigation Dispute resolution in Israel.

The new VAT amendments will lower the cost of clinical trials on humans in Israel. The amendment to the VAT legislation is expected to benefit international companies which conduct clinical trials in Israel. Adv. Harel Perlmutter, who specializes in international taxation at Barnea Co., was interviewed to Globes and stated that: "the new amendments will have two major implications – Firstly when the Israeli company acquires the medication from an overseas company, the Israeli company will not have to pay VAT or Customs Duty in Israel (the Israeli company will usually pass on these costs to the overseas company). Secondly, when the Israeli company charges fees for its services to the overseas company for doing the trials, the Israeli company will charge VAT at zero per cent."

Barnea has once again been chosen to be included in the 2015 InterGame Year Book Directory as one of the law firms advising the gaming and games industries.

We are the authors of the Israeli chapter in the International Comparative Legal Guide to Gambling 2015. The Guide covers a range of topics including: relevant authorities and legislation, application for a license and license restrictions, enforcement, liability and more. This publication is one of 38 ICLG guides published which cover all major practice areas and provide in-house counsel with a legal overview in different jurisdictions.

The Treatment of Electrical and Electronic Equipment and Batteries Law came into effect recently. Asaf Shalev,head of Environmental Law at Barnea Co explains the Law and its ramifications for suppliers, distributors and marketers.

The Real Estate department, headed by Ariel Nadler, represented Israel Natural Gas Lines in the petition filed against it by Kibbutz Regavim. The judge rejected the petition stating that she did not see a reason to interfere in the government’s decision. In her view, once the safety concerns had been cleared, the kibbutz should have withdrawn the petition, which it did not do, The kibbutz will have to bear petition costs of NIS 4,000,000. 

As an expert in the technology field, Micky Barnea was invited to lead the high-tech panel at the Israel’s 2nd Foreign Law Firms Conference. The panel: Start-Up Nation Vs. Exit Nation will deal with the effect of startup nation on the Israeli legal scene, the current trends in high-tech exit transactions, IPO's and the interface between Israeli and foreign law firms in high-tech legal work.