| Central-Lod District Court |
| Class Action 53066-11-23 Levy et al. v. LinkedIn Corporation et al. |
| Request Number:16 | |||
| Before | The Honorable Judge Carmit Ben-Eliezer | ||
| Applicant (Respondent in the Motion for Approval) | LinkedIn Corporation
By Adv. Yoav Estreicher and Ariel Rakover |
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| Against | |||
| Respondents (Applicants in the Motion for Approval) | 1. Reut Levy
2. Nitzan Yaakobi By Attorney Shalom Eban |
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Decision
- Before me is the respondent's motion to deny the court's authority to hear the proceeding.
On November 26, 2023, the Applicants filed a motion to certify a class action against the Respondent (and against another Respondent, which has since been deleted from the proceeding).
The Respondent is a company based in the United States, and it operates a social network that focuses on the professional field, and enables users to create a personal and professional profile and through it manage business and social relations with other users of the network. In addition to the possibility of making free use of the network, the Respondent also provides the LinkedIn Premium Paid (hereinafter: premium service), which provides users with various benefits.
In a nutshell, according to what is alleged in the application for approval, the Respondent is acting unlawfully by automatically and unilaterally renewing transactions for fixed periods, and in particular the engagement to receive a premium service, in contravention of the Cogent Directives of the Consumer Protection Law, 5741-1981, and in the process collects significant sums of money from consumers. It was also argued that in a case where the consumer wishes to cancel the engagement, the respondent does not cancel the engagement immediately but at the end of the period, without refunding the consumer the relative part of the sums he paid.
- In the framework of the heresy motion, the respondent denied any claim of wrongdoing and claimed that the court had no jurisdiction to hear the motion for approval.
In the motion for heresy, it was argued that the applicants did not meet the burden of establishing a cause of action against the respondent, because the request for approval was based solely on Israeli law, which does not apply in the circumstances of the case, both in light of the rules of choice of law applicable in Israel and in light of the foreign choice of law clause set forth in the agreement between the parties. The Respondent also argued that the Applicants did not meet the burden of proving that Israel is the appropriate forum to discuss the application for approval.