[11] In their statement of defense, the lenders argued that the Fair Credit Law does not apply to the loan, since the law does not apply to a borrower who is a corporation, and in this case the loan was given to an unregistered partnership of the group members with others (ibid., paragraphs 33-44). The lenders did not repeat the argument in the summaries, as aforesaid, and rightly so, if only because, as noted, the first agreement is between the lending company and the group members jointly and severally.
[12] It should be noted that in the framework of their summaries, the defendants did not raise claims regarding their right to the agreed compensation in the sum of NIS 100,000, and this compensation was not even included in the calculation of the total debt in the notebook. In any event, for the avoidance of doubt, it should be clarified that the amount of compensation is part of the "arrears interest", as defined in the Fair Credit Law, and therefore it is also subject to the limitation on its rate prescribed by law. In any case, it should not be added to the calculation.
[13] It should be noted that it is precisely the expert who raised in paragraph 89 of his opinion the possibility of viewing the various parts of the loan by virtue of the second agreement as different loans, in such a way that the interest limits in the Fair Credit Law will apply to the first two parts.
[14] The fact that the additional interest was calculated in Appendix 4 to this affidavit as early as December 2016 does not constitute an explicit and clear reference to the matter, as required. It appears that the first stage in which the argument was raised explicitly was in paragraph 6 of the defendants' comments on the draft expert opinion (attached as an appendix to the opinion), but even then it was not anchored in appropriate documents.
[15] Although the section does not explicitly state the amounts of interest appearing therein, taking into account the fact that the entire section deals with the second phase, and the fact that the interest for the first phase was already regulated in clause 3.3.1, the reasonable meaning is that the interest relates to the amounts of the second phase.