Alternatively, it was argued that the burden of proving that the Israeli forum is not the proper forum is on the defendants and they did not meet this burden, and in general, the defendants did not establish any more appropriate alternative forum for clarifying the disputes.
As for the defendants' claim that it is not possible to conduct a proceeding in an Israeli court against foreign companies that are subject to the laws of their country, it was argued that this is a baseless claim that does not deserve an answer at all.
In light of all the above, it was argued that the application should be rejected.
- In response to the reply , the defendants reiterate that the lawsuit that was filed and its facts have no connection to Israel, except for the fact that Israeli citizens are involved in it, and that defendant 1 - despite being an Israeli citizen - has no connection whatsoever to Israel relevant to the lawsuit, and that he does not even reside in Israel.
With regard to the claim that two years have passed since the filing of the lawsuit, the defendants argue that this claim ignores the fact that the claim in its current form is different from the lawsuit filed about two years ago, which mainly tried to establish an employee-employer relationship between the plaintiffs and the defendants. It was argued that since the lawsuit was first filed, the plaintiffs had completely changed the legal basis for their claim and the causes of action in the amended statement of claim, and as a result, an amended statement of defense was filed. It was argued that in these circumstances, the pre-trial that took place on January 8, 2025 is the first significant pre-trial after the filing of the amended claim, and this is the right stage to examine preliminary arguments in depth, and therefore there is no delay here.
Moreover, it was argued that according to case law, a claim of lack of substantive jurisdiction (including international jurisdiction) is considered to be a claim that can be raised at any stage of the proceeding, since it goes to the root of the court's jurisdiction. In this regard, the defendants admit that in recent years a more restrictive approach has developed, whereby the court may not resort to the claim of lack of substantive jurisdiction that is raised late. However, it was argued that this approach, which is based on the principles of procedural good faith and the prevention of abuse of legal proceedings, was adopted mainly when the claim was raised after the case had been conducted for a long time, and raising the late argument would cause a waste of judicial resources. According to them, in our case, the opposite is true - the filing of the application at this stage meets the conditions of procedural good faith (and in general), since only now, at the end of the documents disclosure proceedings, it is clear that the plaintiffs do not have a single document in which a connection was created between the defendants and/or the event and/or the undertakings that were allegedly given to the State of Israel, and the case is still in its infancy, affidavits have not yet been filed and evidence has not yet been heard in the file. It was also argued that a lack of substantive authority does not heal due to the passage of time. Therefore, it is appropriate to address it on its merits and not to block the discussion of it on procedural grounds.