Client updates /  Competition Rules

On August 6, 2025, the interministerial team to increase competition in the retail banking sector (established by Israel’s Minister of Finance in collaboration with the Governor of the Bank of Israel) published its recommendations on the measures needed to increase competition in banking services.

The Israel Competition Authority (ICA) conducted a thorough investigation of the S. Schestowitz Group, an Israeli company in the food and consumer goods sector, due to suspicions the company operated a cartel in the food industry in violation of the Economic Competition Law and the Law for the Promotion of Competition in the Food and Pharmacy Industries.

Bank Hapoalim and Israel Discount Bank will each pay the State Treasury ILS 40 million within the framework of an administrative settlement, in respect of their acquisitions of minority stakes in a competitor.

The Israel Competition Authority (ICA) announced that as of March 31, 2025, it will begin publishing on its website a list of pending merger transactions and exemption applications for restrictive trade arrangements that are under its review.

As part of a series of measures to combat the cost of living, the Israel Competition Authority’s Director General is taking broad law enforcement measures for the first time against major food suppliers for violations of the Food Law. Inter alia, the Food Law prohibits food suppliers and retailers from engaging in various commercial arrangements that could prevent small suppliers or retailers from competing. 

This is not the first time the Israel Competition Authority has imposed sanctions on companies that fail to respond adequately to its demands for data. However, this is the highest sum ever imposed for such a violation and approaches the maximum the ICA’s Director General may impose in this regard.

Six months after the amendment to the Economic Competition Law took effect, the Competition Authority published its position regarding the circumstances in which even an entity with less than a 50% market share may be deemed a “monopoly holder.”