(Transcript of March 17, 2025, p. 238, paras. 25-27).
- Eli was asked about other employees named Shani, Darnell and Moti, but claimed that he did not know and/or had no interaction with them (p. 240, questions 1-12).
- This fact, as well as other facts named Liat Borowski and Yarden Zlouf, who were summoned to testify by the defendants in order to support their claim, were not located by the plaintiffs, according to them, and they relinquished their testimony. Other employees whose names came up, such as Shani and Moti, were not even summoned to testify. As stated, the fact that these witnesses were not summoned and/or waived their testimony is the duty of the plaintiffs.
- Under these circumstances, it has not been proven by the plaintiffs that Cybertrade employees worked for SciLogic, certainly not to the extent that justifies claiming half of the wages paid to employees over the years.
- Therefore, this argument is also rejected.
The Claim of Payment of Advertising Expenses
- The plaintiffs claimed an additional sum of ILS 571,218 for their share of advertising expenses paid to Google, Facebook and Microsoft, which were allegedly paid by Cybertrade for the purpose of promoting other businesses of Sarel and Shahar.
- According to the plaintiffs, in 2018 there was a significant increase in advertising expenses, despite a decrease in the operating costs of CyberTrade, which began operating in 2017 through a "call center" and consumed less advertising. The explanation for this, they claim, is the fact that in 2018 a new venture by CyberLogic was launched - a dating site called "Luxor" and the advertising expenses were used to promote it.
- Eli, who served as Cybertrade's marketing manager and was in charge of advertising, rejected this claim. He noted in his affidavit that Google, Facebook, and Microsoft do not allow the same domain name to be published by more than one account, and therefore the publication was only for Cybertrade (paragraph 6 of his affidavit). Eli was not interrogated about this and his version was not concealed.
- Eli testified that Microsoft's search engine did not work in Israel, while the dating site operated in Israel, and therefore the advertisement on Microsoft was not relevant to Cyberlogic (transcript of March 17, 2025, p. 239, paras. 25-26). He also testified that Facebook does not allow the advertising of dating sites for any purpose (p. 239, paras. 24-25). His testimony was not concealed.
- In other words, Eli's testimony indicates that the claim that the advertising expenses were used to promote CyberLogic's business is technically impossible.
- Rafi admitted in his testimony that Cybertrade had revenues in 2017 in the amount of approximately ILS 2 million from its independent activity, as a direct result of the publication of the websites on the Internet, in addition to the activity through the "Call Center" (minutes of March 19, 2025, p. 162).
- Oren also confirmed that Cybertrade had income from its independent activity (Minutes of March 17, 2025, p. 114, questions 5-9).
- Eli testified that he provided "leads" (customers who left contact details so that a salesperson would contact them) to Optimotek's "Call Center" through Google (transcript of March 17, 2025, p. 242, questions 22-26 and p. 243, questions 1-6).
- Hence, contrary to what was claimed, Cybertrade had its own independent online activity, in addition to the activity of Optimotech, which is owned by Yaniv and Oren, as a direct result of advertising on the Internet. In addition, advertising activity was carried out that served Optimotech's activity through the "Call Center".
- Therefore, the claim that no advertising was carried out or that low-volume advertising was carried out for the purpose of promoting Cybertrade activity during the relevant period, was not proven.
- As for the claim that advertising expenses in 2018 were double those in 2017 while the revenues were almost identical, it should be remembered that Cybertrade worked until July 2018, so in seven months of work the sales turnover was higher than in all of 2017. In these circumstances, the fact that high advertising expenses were spent in 2018 does not necessarily indicate that the advertising was used for another activity.
- With regard to the claim that Sarel and Shahar concealed the documents relating to the advertising providers, in a decision dated December 16, 2022, the plaintiffs' request for orders to third parties for the purpose of disclosing the contracts with various service providers and documents relating to the various payments paid to the service providers and details of which service the payment was made. However, it was held that the defendants in the coin claim must (1) disclose the contracts with those service providers specified in section 123C. to their statement of defense and (2) to specify for which service the same payments were made to the various suppliers, which are indicated in the accounting ledger. Subsequently, a supplementary affidavit was produced by Sarel, which was also partial, and therefore it was determined in the decision of May 30, 2023 that the defendants must respond to the demand in paragraph 2 of the decision of December 16, 2022, and specify for which service those payments were made to the various suppliers, which are indicated in the bookkeeping ledger. On December 18, 2024, about a year and a half after the date of the decision of May 30, 2023, the plaintiffs filed a motion to amend the list of witnesses and to summon representatives of Google, Microsoft and Facebook as witnesses for the production of documents. The request indicates that Sarel and Shahar provided the plaintiffs with various documents, after the decisions made in the request for discovery of documents, including invoices issued to Google and Facebook, but they claim that no documents were produced from which it is possible to learn what the "product" was received for these payments. The application was rejected in a decision of January 12, 2025.
It follows from this that this claim was discussed on a number of occasions and that various documents were produced by the defendants.