The defendant agreed to the plaintiffs' alternative offer, but since then he has evaded fulfilling his obligations to the plaintiffs and even sent them a warning letter through his attorneys.
- As part of their lawsuit, the plaintiffs petitioned for a determination that all the necessary conditions are met in order to lift the corporate veil between the defendant and the American company and the Gibraltar company, and that the defendant must bear with the defendants all obligations to the plaintiffs. In addition, and alternatively, the plaintiffs petitioned to order that the defendant is personally responsible for compensating them. Therefore, the defendants were asked to pay the sum of ILS 4,800,157 jointly and severally together with linkage differences and interest from the date of filing the claim until the actual payment.
- In the statement of defense filed by the defendants, the defendants categorically denied the plaintiff's claims and claimed that the lawsuit should be dismissed. In summary, the defendants' main arguments are that the District Court lacks substantive jurisdiction, since there was a substantial employee-employer relationship between the parties, and that it should be transferred to the Labor Court. This argument was also made in the amendment of the claim, which was claimed to be a mere semantic amendment; that the claim against defendants 2-3 should be dismissed out of hand, due to the absence of rivalry and lack of cause, since in the statement of claim the plaintiffs do not make any claim and/or do not specify any cause of action against any of the defendants, nor have they attached any document attesting to the existence of any agreement or obligation of defendants 2-3 towards them; that the plaintiffs are hiding from the court the true factual mask, including the fact that they were the ones who established the company in Gibraltar, and that they were experienced entrepreneurs who were entrepreneurs of the project for all intents and purposes, and that the defendant did not persuade the plaintiffs to enter into the project or invest in it, but that they themselves sought to join various projects and purchase digital currencies; In addition, it was claimed that the plaintiffs did not present any document, agreement or reference to support their claims.
- In response, the plaintiffs argued that all of the defendants' claims were rejected. Thus, according to them, in summary, there was no employee-employer relationship between the parties and the cause of action does not stem from an employment relationship, but, inter alia, from sections 56-57 of the Torts Ordinance, since the relationship between the parties is more similar to the relationship created between investors and entrepreneurs; that correspondence was exchanged between the plaintiffs and the American company by email; that the payment to the suppliers with whom the plaintiffs contracted for defendants 2-3 was made from the bank account of the American company, which was under the sole control of the defendant, and therefore it is clear that there is a rivalry between the plaintiffs and the American company and the names of defendants 2-3 should not be removed from the letter of claim; As for the defendant's claim that the plaintiffs are the developers of the project, the plaintiffs claim that they were not part of the project from the beginning, and that the project was established by the defendant as early as 2016, long before he knew the plaintiffs. It was further claimed that in 2018 the defendant decided to consolidate the activity in the project under a company and established defendant 2 as the sole shareholder in it and its address is his residential address, and that defendant 3 was also established by the defendant, who was the one who signed the establishment documents, transferred the funds required for its establishment and is the sole owner thereof.
The application is before me;
- In the framework of the motion before the aforementioned petitioners, the defendants to postpone, or alternatively, to delete the statement of claim due to the lack of international jurisdiction in Israel, since, according to them, the amended statement of claim and/or in the documents disclosed in the framework of the discovery proceedings do not indicate any indication of a connection, material or otherwise, to the State of Israel.
The defendants base their application first and foremost on the fact that the defendant resides permanently in the United States and that the defendant companies are registered in the United States (defendant 2) and Gibraltar (defendant 3). The defendants further claim that all of the actions that are the subject of the lawsuit took place outside of Israel, without exception. Regarding this, the defendants specify that even in accordance with the facts detailed in the statement of claim - the first ZOOM meeting between the parties and all the other ZOOM meetings were held while the defendant was at home in the United States; the solar farm that was planned, allegedly, should have been built in the state of Arkansas in the United States; the new coin was supposed to be issued in the United States; the regulation for the issuance of the coin took place in Gibraltar, as did the issuance itself - i.e., There is no connection to the State of Israel.