The language of the Regulation indicates that the date for raising a request based on an improper forum is at the time of filing the statement of claim, however, the fact that the request is raised at a later stage does not lead to the rejection of the application, but rather that the court is authorized to hear it while awarding costs.
- On the merits of the application, the case law held that the court must consider the appropriateness of the forum and refrain from hearing the claim, if it finds that there is a foreign "natural" forum that has the authority to hear the action, and therefore the Israeli court must refrain from exercising its jurisdiction (Civil Appeal 2547/23 Office Textiles in a Tax Appeal v. Broklinen Inc Delaware co 5469940 (28/12/23) (hereinafter: "Office Textiles"); Civil Appeal Authority 8854/22 The Dow Chemicals Company v. Jacobson Agencies Ltd., para. 35 (27/3/23)) - The Doctrine of the Proper Forum.
Already at this stage, I will note that in recent years there has been a decline in the status of the improper forum doctrine, following the development of the international media and transportation (Civil Appeal Authority 2705/97 Gypsy A. Sinai (1989) v . The Lockformer Co., 22(1) 109, 114 (1989)).
- In order to determine what constitutes a proper forum, the court must resort to three main tests: the test of maximum affinity; the test of the reasonable expectations of the parties; and the test of public considerations (Civil Appeal Authority 1785/15 ALISON TRANSPORT INC V. COSCO CONTAINER LINES CO LTD (15/7/15) para. 12 AND REFERENCES THEREIN).
At the same time, it was held that only when the balance between the affiliations to the Israeli forum and the affiliations to the foreign forum is clearly tilted, significantly to the foreign forum, will the Israeli court decide that although it is authorized to hear the claim, it is not the appropriate forum to hear it (see Civil Appeal 928/18 De Neef Construction Chemicals BVBA v. Gilar in Tax Appeal (15/5/18); Civil Appeal Authority 2737/08 Arbel v. TUI AG, para. 17 (29/1/09) (hereinafter: "the Arbel case"); Civil Appeal 3999/12 Elzer in Tax Appeal v. LINAK A/S, para. 21 (20/1/14); Wasserstein Fassberg, Private International Law (2013), pp. 418-419; A. Goren, Issues in Civil Procedure, at p. 82).