(b) If an offense under this law has been committed by a corporation or by an employee of its employees, it is presumed that an officer of the corporation has breached his duty under subsection (a), unless he proves that he has done everything possible to fulfill his duty.

(c) In this section, "officer" means an active manager of the corporation, a partner, other than a limited partner, or an official responsible on behalf of the corporation for the field in which the offense was committed."

109. After reviewing the evidence presented to me, I determine that defendant 2 is definitely an officer of the corporation, whether by virtue of his holdings and his position as a director and chairman of the board of directors or because of his actual conduct.
110. I am aware of the allegations that this is a senior businessman under whose control many hotels in Israel and abroad are under his control, and that he does not personally handle each and every one of them (section 351 of the defendants' summaries), but they are inconsistent with the evidence presented to me.
111. I heard from Defendant 2 himself that he was involved in the operation of the current hotel, from its purchase, and onwards to its renovation and the legal proceedings that accompanied it. This was also reflected in the defendants' summaries, in which it was claimed that "he led the investment in the hotel; hired experts; acted to issue a renovation license; was in contact with the municipality; conducted legal proceedings; and promoted the regularization proceedings on all fronts" (para.  353 of the defendants' summaries).  Thus, we are dealing with a person who was in fact an active manager of the business for the purposes of the provisions of the Business Licensing Law.
112. As for the exception set out in section 15(b), according to which an officer will not be liable for criminal liability if he "proves that he did everything possible to fulfill his duty" - I debated whether the action of defendant 2 is sufficient to determine that he did everything possible to fulfill his duty. I will address this briefly.
113. The defense's arguments regarding the enormous investments made by defendant 2 in the legalization of the business are mainly rooted in the testimony of defendant 2 himself. I find it necessary to give full credibility and high weight to the statements that defendant 2 testified in this context, when it seemed that he was speaking from his heart, and when the words also stood up well to the test of cross-examination.
114. It should be noted that I also heard additional testimony regarding the difficulties of regularization from the defense witness Amit, but that Amit joined in dealing with the issue of the licensing of the business only after the events in the indictment, so that his testimony did not shed additional light on the events in real time.
115. In addition to what Defendant 2 himself recounted in relation to those events from a real time, a significant part of the summaries (in particular sections 143-37,45) seek to be based on facts that were determined in other proceedings, between civil disputes that were clarified in the Rent Court and proceedings conducted in the various courts in connection with administrative demolition orders that were partially revoked and partially approved. I find it difficult to address the facts that were determined in these proceedings, and about which I did not hear direct evidence in the proceeding before me (I will mention that section 42 of the Evidence Ordinance works in the opposite direction).  At the same time, as noted, the very significant efforts, the considerable capital invested, the multitude of legal proceedings and the bureaucratic difficulties that the defendants had to deal with, also emerged from the testimony of the defendant himself (even if not in the resolution presented in the summaries).  I will also note that I have reviewed the different case law to which the defense referred me in the matter of the business, and I am impressed by the excerpts to which I have been referred as reinforcement that the defendants were indeed preoccupied with many proceedings in the framework of their attempt to operate the business, and that in a significant part of them, the various courts found that there is a real difference in the defendants' position (with regard to the need to use these references for the purposes of the findings noted, see Criminal Appeal 277/81 Shalom Halevi v.  State of Israel, 38(2) 369 (1984); Criminal Appeals Authority 2847/10 Jimmy Tzur v.  State of Israel (Nevo, April 15,2010)).
116. Thus, I have the impression that the defendants have been trying for years to make an authentic and real attempt to promote the receipt of a business license. Admittedly, at no stage was an administrative petition filed with respect to the decision not to grant a business license.  However, it does not appear that this stemmed from contempt or disregard for the process.  On the contrary.  In my understanding, after the Authority clarified that the license was conditional on the removal of a planning obstacle, the defendants invested countless resources in removing that planning barrier.  The path they chose is a logical and pertinent legal track, which attests to a real attempt to solve the problems; and it cannot be said that an administrative petition asking the court to order the granting of a business license despite that obstacle is a better legal track than the one chosen.
117. Still, the question remains whether this is sufficient to meet the high standard set by section 15(b) of the Business Licensing Law, according to which the responsibility of an officer will not meet if he "did everything possible to fulfill his duty".
118. In this context, I will note that in the framework of Amendment No. 34, section 15 was amended so that today the officer is liable as long as he has not done everything possible to fulfill his duty; and it is no longer sufficient to take reasonable measures, as appeared in the language of the law in the past. Thus, the legislature said what he said less than a decade ago, and clarified that the protection is given only in special cases in which efforts have been made to "do everything possible" to fulfill the obligation.
119. To note that a ruling by the District Court that dealt with the section of the law even before its language was hardened and tightened in Amendment 34 indicates that the operation of a business without a license beyond the periods of "grace" for the operation of the business until the license was received as it existed at the time, does not meet this exceptional condition (see Another Criminal Appeal (Tel Aviv-Yafo) 80067-06 Shavit Rami v. State of Israel - Municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo (April 7,2008)).
120. In the present case, according to the defendants' own version, this is a business that has been operating without a license for a very long period of time - from 2018 until today, when its actual operation began in 2021 or 2022. This is a very long period in which the business operated without a license, above and beyond any "grace period" of any kind.
121. Moreover, I was under the impression that the degree of defendant 2's control over the business enabled him to consider suspending the business activity until the license was obtained, as opposed to other officers who may not have such influence. After such a long period of time, when the business did not yet have a license, the possibility of closing the business until the license was issued should have been on the agenda.  I have not heard a satisfactory explanation as to why this option was not chosen, and it seems that the reason for this was indeed purely economic.
122. In their summaries, the defendants emphasized the legal consequences of the proceedings in the Rental Court, which they said ended with the adoption of all their arguments, as well as the demolition order that the municipality withdrew and the cancellation of the administrative demolition order that touched the elevator shaft, which in their view was more central. They sought to rely on this in order to show that they had found themselves in a onerous planning process that included misplaced demands, and that they had no responsibility for it and its prolongation.
123. However, the picture in this context is incomplete. Alongside these words, in the framework of IDF 1705-09-19, it was also approved for the execution of Order 1335-19 on January 7,2025, and an appeal that was filed was dismissed on December 24,2025.  The District Court, in the words of the Honorable Judge Tavor, noted that "I saw the work that was carried out and was impressed by the scope of the investment and the beauty of the result and the positive change in the appearance of the place for the benefit of all the residents.  However, none of this justifies the execution of work without a permit, just as any other person was required.  In practice, the appellant received a very long time, and it turns out that it was not sufficient to legalize the construction.  The arguments regarding the order were rejected and rightly rejected" (para.  34).  Indeed, every person has the right to exhaust his claims before the courts, and therefore I do not attribute to them the very conduct of the proceeding; But it cannot be argued that the planning and building proceedings were all futile proceedings, a kind of unjustified regulatory trap, for which it was justified to make a self-judgment As it is done, when one of the two orders for which the proceedings were conducted in the Court of Local Affairs was approved by the Court of Local Affairs and also by the Court of Appeals.  In addition, even after these things, More than six months before the prohibited construction was demolished (a reference attached to a court statement dated 20.8.2026, and see also the testimony of a colleague as detailed in the verse ‏68 Above).  This is inconsistent with the claim that the defendant did everything possible to carry out his legal duties.
124. Moreover, this is a business that has a judicial closure order that was issued in a previous proceeding, back in 2017, and defendant 2 chose to continue operating the hotel and did not even try to request a delay in the execution of the order. In the words of the defendant, "I was not interested in the closure order..." To note that in the accuser's response to the preliminary arguments of May 18,2025, the accuser commented that it was necessary to file such a stay of execution; but this has not yet been requested.  For this reason, too, when no attempt was made to try to delay a pending judicial order, it cannot be said that defendant 2 did "everything possible" to fulfill his obligations under the Business Licensing Law.
125. In these circumstances, and without taking lightly the training efforts undertaken by the defendants, I find it difficult to determine that defendant 2 did everything possible to fulfill his duty to operate the business under a license. Therefore, I cannot determine that he is not criminally responsible for the offense attributed to him.

The Elements of the Offense and the Responsibility of Defendant 1 for the Offense of Failure to Comply with an Order

126. The second offense attributed in the indictment, this time to Defendant 1 only, is the offense of failure to comply with a judicial order under Section 18 of the Business Licensing Law. This time, this is not an offense for which it was noted that it is an offense of strict liability, and therefore it is an offense in which criminal thought is required.
127. In this context, the prosecution referred me to a closure and cessation order issued on January 30,2017 by the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Local Affairs Court in Criminal Case No. 02/15/0008458, which was allegedly effective on April 1,2017, and that it was delivered to defendant 1 on January 30,2017. It should be noted that defendant 1 (as opposed to defendant 2) did not deny the order issued in relation to her or its delivery to her (see paragraph 91 of the court statement of March 5,2025).  Since only defendant 1 was attributed a violation of this statutory provision, and there was no denial on her part of the aforesaid in this context, there is no need to elaborate further.
128. For the sake of good order, I will note that during his testimony defendant 2 suggested that in view of the massive renovation that took place in the building, it should be considered a new hotel for all intents and purposes, and therefore the previous order is as if it did not apply. I cannot accept the argument.  The order remains in effect, certainly when it comes to the same address and the same type of business.  It is not for nothing that this argument, which was emphasized in this way by defendant 2, was not expressed as such in the defendants' summaries (see para.  ‏88 above).
129. Thus, the accuser met the burden of proving the facts required in order to attribute to defendants 1-2 offenses under section 14 of the Business Licensing Law, when the liability of defendant 2 increases under section 15 of the Business Licensing Law, and defendant 1 was well proven an offense under section 18 of the Business Licensing Law.

The Defense of Justice Claims

130. However, this is not the end of the hearing before me, and I must now address the defense arguments from justice, which were first raised on March 5,2025, and which were also focused on the investigations, the evidence, and the summaries.

I did not find any substance in the claim of infringement of the right of defendant 2 to give his version

131. There is no need to elaborate on the importance of a suspect's right to be heard before an indictment is filed against him. This is a basic right that is part of the right to a fair trial.
132. Indeed, the investigating authorities have not only the right to interrogate the suspect in order to obtain information relevant to the investigation, but also the duty to conduct an investigation, in order to obtain the suspect's version, and all this, as part of the defendant's right in a criminal proceeding to a fair trial (Yaakov Shaked, The Court of Local Affairs: In Practice, 41-50 (2019); see also Planning and Building - Local Committees (Local St.) 52030-11-15 Local Planning and Building Committee Ness Ziona v. Triple Eye Properties and Investments A.M., at paragraph 9.1 of the judgment (Nevo, October 9,2018)).
133. At the same time, it has been held more than once that in cases involving business licensing or planning and construction offenses, when there is no investigative body at the investigation stage that holds investigative powers, it is sufficient for the defendant to lawfully summon him to accept his version, and even the summons for interrogation was not actually given, and even the defendant did not appear to give his version (see, for example, another criminal appeal (Hai District) 61516-08-20 Faraj Abu Rumi v. Local Planning and Building Committee of the Galilee Shephelah at para.  35 of the judgment (Nevo, December 9,2020); and Planning and Building - Local Committees (Safed Locals) 19048-11-14 Local Planning Committee for Merom HaGalil v.  Shimon Kadosh, at paragraph 8 of the judgment (Nevo, July 4,2017)).
134. And what is the meaning of the striking?
135. With regard to defendant 1, it has been proven before me that defendant 1 was lawfully summoned to give her version from the address where the business operates. Since she did not send a representative on her behalf to give a version, she has nothing to complain about except herself.  Therefore, it cannot be determined that her right to a hearing was violated.
136. With regard to Defendant 2 - the investigation material indicates that an invitation to deliver a version was sent to Defendant 2 to the address that appears in the document "Database of Residents of Tel Aviv and Those Coming at its Grates". At the bottom of the page it was noted that "the source of the information for this printout is a batch service of the Population Authority..." (P/2).  No claims were heard regarding the authenticity of the document.
137. Although the defense did not deny the document itself, during his interrogation in court, defendant 2 denied that the address listed in this document was his address. According to him, he lived at another nearby address in those days (the defendant's testimony, p.  80, paras.  21-22,31).
138. I will preface by noting that in the court affidavit in which the preliminary arguments were detailed on March 5,2025, it was argued in great detail that an invitation to the version was not received and that this constitutes a violation of the defendant's right to justify the cancellation of the indictment. At the same time, no clear claim was heard regarding the error in the address (the argument may be implied at most from paragraph 56 of the court statement, but what clearly emerges from it is that he should have addressed the defendant's office address, which he gave to the municipality, and it does not clearly indicate that there was an error in his own home address as well).  In this sense, this is an argument that arose for the first time in the trial and therefore the claim is suppressed.
139. As a later claim, it was at least expected that the claim would be backed up by appropriate reference, but defendant 2 did not present any evidence that the address in which he lived at the time was indeed different.
140. In addition, it should be noted that defendant 2 did not deny that this was the address that was registered in the population registry, but only denied that it was his address - and it is clear that if he inaccurately updated the population registry, and did not act to correct the error in the registry, then the failure to receive the invitation letter is due to a failure on his part, and he has no one to blame but himself.
141. Moreover, it is difficult to ignore the fact that in the file there is an indication by the Israel Post that the mail was indeed delivered to its destination (P/4). I have not heard any denial of the authenticity of this document either, and certainly no postal investigation document or any other document was submitted that would explain the discrepancy between the postal indication, and the testimony of defendant 2 that he did not receive the letter because of the alleged mistake in the address.
142. In addition to all this, it should be noted that it appears from the delivery certificates in the court file that an invitation to a hearing dated December 25,2024 in the present proceeding was given to defendant 2 at the exact same address where he claimed that he never lived (a delivery confirmation dated February 5,2023, was scanned into the Net of Justice file on March 2,2023).
143. In these circumstances, defendant 2 did not meet the burden of contradicting the accuser's claim and her evidence, which shows that the letter of invitation to deliver a version was lawfully sent to him, to his registered address, and was even received by him.
144. Counsel for the defendant further complains that in a letter sent to the Tel Aviv Municipality on July 1,2019, the accuser knows that defendant 2 is available to receive letters at a completely different address, the address of his office from which his business operates (P/3). It should be noted that this address also appears as the address of defendant 2 in the Registrar of Corporations (P/1).  I cannot accept the argument.  With all due respect, the address registered in the population registry is the one that is used for the purposes of summoning the delivery of a version for the purpose of a criminal investigation.  It is the duty of every person, according to sections 2(a)(11) and 17 of the Population Registry Law, to update this address.  The state, at the stage of investigation of offenses such as those before me, in which it has no investigative powers and cannot require a person to come and give his version, is not obligated to search for addresses that were recorded in letters some years earlier, or to "chase" suspects with a variety of addresses, until it receives their version.  This is especially the case, especially after a delivery confirmation is received stating that the invitation to deliver the copy was received by the recipient, and therefore the indication indicates that the defendant chose not to appear.
145. In the totality of the circumstances, I find that there was no flaw in inviting defendant 2 to give his version, and since he did not appear to give his version, he has nothing to complain about but himself.

Claims of selective enforcement

Normative background

146. As is well known, a decision on criminal prosecution is an administrative decision, which is at the core of the decisions that the Public Prosecution has the authority to make. Therefore, it was determined that judicial review of the decision of the prosecuting authorities will be, as a rule, limited review, and the court will tend to intervene in the prosecution's discretion only in cases where a material error or miscarriage of justice has been discovered that goes to the root of the matter (see and compare: High Court of Justice 7195/08 Abu Ruhama v.  Military Advocate General (July 1,2009), Appeal Petition/Administrative Claim 7485/19 Kashkash v.  State of Israel (July 6,2020)).
147. One of the cases in which there may be interference with the authority's discretion is a situation of selective enforcement, in which the very enforcement is "for the purpose of achieving an improper goal, or on the basis of extraneous consideration or out of sheer arbitrariness" (High Court of Justice 6396/96 Zakin v. Mayor of Be'er Sheva, IsrSC 35 (3) 289, at p.
148. To be precise: selective enforcement is not partial enforcement. In other words, it is not enough that the blanket is short and the authority's hand does not reach every offender; however, it must be shown that the authority, in exercising its powers, acted in a manner that harms the sense of justice, to the extent that it establishes a defense that justifies receiving some remedy, whether canceling an indictment or another remedy, for example at the sentencing stage.
149. There is no dispute that the burden of proving a claim of selective enforcement is on the claimant. At the same time, case law has more than once dealt with the question of what exactly is the said burden, and to what extent it extends.  The issue was at the center of the dispute between the justices of the Supreme Court in Criminal Appeal 6328/12 State of Israel v.  Peretz, paragraph 38 (September 10,2013), when the Honorable Judge Vogelman ruled that partial enforcement is sufficient to shift the burden to the Authority's shoulders, to explain why enforcement is not selective; On the other hand, Justice Jubran was of the opinion that a single case is not sufficient to shift the burden, and that a deviation from a systematic and ongoing policy should be pointed out, and Justice Grunis held an intermediate position according to which a deviation from a systematic and prolonged policy should be pointed out unless the defendant does not have access to the material he needs to meet the said burden.
150. Since the Supreme Court remained divided in its opinions regarding the transfer of the burden in this context, the trial courts found it necessary to decide on the transfer of the ad-hoc burden and the circumstances of each case on its own merits, while taking into account, in addition to the considerations detailed in the Peretz case, the type of offenses and their severity, whether they are common or exceptional, special or give rise to special sensitivity (Criminal Appeal (Central District) 60233-02-23 Avraham Ohana v. Tel Aviv District Attorney's Office, Taxation and Economics (Nevo, September 8,2024)).
151. Another important issue is that as a starting point for proving a claim of selective enforcement, the person who makes this claim must point to cases similar to his own in which enforcement was not carried out, i.e., an egalitarian group in which enforcement was not performed. Thus, if there is a substantial and relevant difference between the businesses to which the defendant wishes to compare himself, such as the type of business, the type of violation, etc., it is quite possible that the avoidance of enforcement in the other case does not establish selective enforcement in comparison to his own case.  On the other hand, if different enforcement is proven in similar cases, it may be selective enforcement, according to the criteria set forth in case law (see, for example, Criminal Appeals Authority 90737-01-26 Amihud Borochov v.  Tel Aviv Local Planning and Building Committee (February 4,2026)).
152. Against the background of the aforementioned basic concepts, I will refer to the evidence presented to me in relation to the selective enforcement claims before me.

No selective enforcement has been proven in comparison between the current business and other businesses

153. The defendants' first argument is that the criminal enforcement here deviates from that used by the accuser in relation to the owners of nearby buildings.
154. In this context, the defendants argued even at the stage of filing the preliminary arguments that the business should be compared to other cases, "and in particular to the buildings adjacent to the hotel." In the meantime, the defendants referred me from the very beginning to the case of Abulafia, who allegedly operates businesses without a license without the authority taking action against them; and even receives temporary permits for the purpose of operating his business, even if he ignores a judicial demolition order under the planning and building laws that has been imposed on the building since time immemorial. It was argued that in another business of Abulafia, a balcony collapsed, and yet, the permit was not revoked and the business continues to operate.  In these circumstances, it was argued that the revocation of the permit and license from the defendants and the taking of measures against them amounted to selective enforcement (para.  ‏14 above).
155. The defendants repeated this argument in full force at the stage of presenting the evidence and again at the summary stage. According to defendant 2, Abulafia is a businessman who operates his business illegally, but is not enforced by the right of money he pays to officials in the municipality (para.  ‏64 above).
156. After reviewing the statements presented to me in this context, I find that the evidentiary basis laid before me is insufficient to establish a claim of selective enforcement of this kind.
157. As to the claim that no business licensing proceedings are being taken in the case of Abulafia, the accuser presented to me a proceeding that was taken in relation to Abulafia's nearby business, in contrast to the strong arguments that were heard regarding the failure to take proceedings against him and his business (P/10). Even after the defendants realized that a proceeding had been taken in relation to Abulafia's business, the defendants claimed that the proceeding presented showed discrimination against them, because it ended "only" with the conviction of the corporation and not with the conviction of its managers, when the accuser was not prepared for a similar arrangement with respect to defendant 2 (P/10,22.1.2026 at p.  34).
158. I have examined both proceedings and do not believe that they are in the same equal group. In each of the apparent variables, the matter before me is more serious than that of Abulafia's business.
159. The current business is a hotel and the consumption of intoxicating beverages, Abulafia's business was a food house for baking and selling baked goods, making toasts and sandwiches.
160. The current business is 888 square meters, the business in B/10 was 144 square meters.
161. The current business has been operating without a license since 2012, when already in 2017 a judicial order was issued to close the business due to non-compliance with the requirements of the Business Licensing Law, and to this day in 2026 the hotel is operating without a license. On the other hand, in Abulafia's business in the Shabbat/10 case, it was reported that the business operated without a license according to an audit in 2019, without a previous judicial order pending, when about a year after the indictment was filed, in late 2020, the business already held a license.
162. All of these variables show that this is not a single egalitarian group , and therefore, this is not selective enforcement.
163. The defendants continue to refer to the policy of the authority that allowed Abulafia to grant a license, despite the existence of a pending judicial order in accordance with the planning and building laws. In this context, I was referred to Abulafia, mentioned above.  It should be noted that a review of the files shows that we are dealing with different addresses and different periods between Abulafia and P/10.  After reviewing the matter, I will not be able to discuss this argument.  The arguments regarding the decision to grant a license to Abulafia but not to grant a license or temporary permit for the defendants' businessare claims relating to the administrative discretion of the authority, issues that are generally within the jurisdiction of the Court for Administrative Affairs (section 5(1) of the Administrative Courts Law, together with section 7(1) of the First Addendum).  I was not persuaded that there was justification for holding the indirect attack hearing in this proceeding just to try and elevate a selective enforcement claim, compared tobusinesses that I didn't even learn were similar enough to maintain a single egalitarian group.
164. As for the balcony that collapsed in an adjacent building, and according to the claim is also connected to Abulafia's business (N/6), no evidence was presented, nor did I hear any testimony from personal knowledge regarding the nature of the business in the adjacent building, when it operated, what permits or refusals it holds, what happened after the collapse of the balcony - whether the license was revoked or not, whether the activity in the business was resumed before the repairs were completed there, etc. Moreover, from what arose in the hearing, it appears that the incident of the balcony collapse occurred after the date of the inspection of the business in question, and also after the date of the filing of the indictment.  It is difficult to shock that the operation of the hotel for years, from 2012 onwards to the date of the inspection in 2022 and until today, will be explained by a safety incident that occurred in some nearby business in 2023 and was repaired shortly thereafter.  In fact, the summaries show that the defendants do not dispute that a quick and efficient repair of the building justifies the continued operation of the other business.  Instead, it seems that once again they are holding the argument regarding the administrative discretion of the Licensing Authority, and according to them, the event of the collapse and repair of the balcony in the adjacent building in 2023 has significance in examining the discretion of the Authority not to grant the defendants here a business license for many years.  Again, it seems that this argument has its place already in the Court of Administrative Affairs, and not in the framework of an indirect attack in the current proceeding; and I have not found justification for discussing it here.
165. In addition, the defendants make a general claim that no proceedings have been taken in relation to other businesses, even if they are not Abulafia's.
166. In this context, the accuser presented me with a document indicating the criminal enforcement of business licensing in the relevant geographical area (P/9). The defendants claim that many of the businesses listed in P/9 are still operating.  No evidence was presented in this regard.  They also claim that no indictment was filed against some of the businesses in respect of which enforcement was initiated, and this also indicates that selective enforcement was taken against them.  However, they did not present before me any evidence indicating the nature of the adjacent businesses, the duration of the violation, the nature of the violation, the proceedings taken therein, the sufficiency of the evidence that necessitated, for example, the return of the case to supervision, and more.  In the present case, as stated, this is an ongoing violation, and the Authority waited a very long time from the time the previous judicial order was violated and until it filed this indictment.  Even during the aforementioned time, the business did not obtain a license.  On the face of it, this is an act of extreme caution, and not in a case in which the Authority rushed to file an indictment, as claimed in the defendants' summaries.  It should be recalled that I found, as stated above, that the defendants were lawfully summoned to give a version, and despite the passage of a long time, they did not do so.  In addition, and for our purposes, I did not see among the evidence presented to me any indication that even greater caution was taken with respect to other businesses, in which the Authority examined the possibilities of returning to supervision for the completion of evidence or the shelving of the case, even greater caution was taken than was taken here.  In general, Dec.  9 reflected to me a consistent policy of caution and responsible examination of the evidence prior to the filing of an indictment.
167. To be precise, the lack of evidence of selective enforcement that discriminates between the defendants and others cannot be attributed to the lack of access to this type of information. In this context, I will note that the framework of the preliminary arguments included a laconic request to receive enforcement data for the purpose of substantiating the legal arguments (paragraph 87 of the preliminary arguments of March 5,2025).  In my decision in this context, I asked the defendants to clarify whether the request, which was, as aforesaid, rather laconic is exhaustive from their point of view, whether they wish to file it separately, whether under section 74 of the Criminal Procedure Law or under section 108 of this law, and I noted that "upon receipt of their response, instructions will be given for further consideration in this context" (decision of May 22,2025).  The defendants' reference to the aforesaid was never submitted, and thus, the request for additional materials was abandoned.
168. In these circumstances, the defendants cannot complain about the lack of evidentiary material to substantiate their claimNor can they be built on the fact that the prosecution witness who came to court, Edelstein, did not know how to contribute additional information to the various selective enforcement claims raised by them (para. ‏43 above, and their grievances in paragraphs 236-348 of their summaries).
169. Thus, the evidentiary basis laid before me is not sufficient to determine that selective enforcement was taken between this business and the business of others.

The burden was lifted to show selective enforcement when comparing different officers in the same business

170. Another Selective Enforcement Claim which was brought in this proceeding, is a claim of selective enforcement between the officers of the hotel themselves, where the claim of selective enforcement was formulated from the outset as "a decision not to prosecute the additional owners of the land and/or in identical or similar circumstances" (para. ‏14 above).  In the course of his testimony in court, defendant 2 himself clarified the argument, and clarified that the business had additional directors, and no indictment was filed against them (p.  78, paras.  26-33, p.  79, paras.  1-3).
171. After I have considered the matter, I find that the insistence on the indictment in the case of defendant 2, while ignoring other officers that arise from the evidence that was placed before me, raises a difficulty.
172. As stated above, the accuser connected defendant 2 to what was going on in the business by means of P/1, from which it can be learned that he is a director of the company. Defendant 2 even confirmed in his cross-examination that he served as a director.
173. However, in the same P/1 the names of two other directors appear. An indictment was filed against the other, who has been in the position since the 1990s, and was deleted.  Against the other, who was registered as a director side by shoulder with defendant 2, an indictment was never filed.  On the face of it, the other directors are in the same group as defendant 2, and if the other one who was deposed was predicted to be in the business many years earlier, when the business operated without a license, and yet, the indictment remains pending at the present stage only against defendant 2.  Therefore, the basic burden of pointing to selective enforcement has been lifted, and now, the accuser's response must be accepted because of the difference between the cases.
174. However, the accuser in her summaries does indeed address the part of defendant 2, but does not address the difference between him and those others who belong to him in the same equal group. Indeed, I have determined, as a factual finding, that the defendant has an active role in the management of the business, which makes him criminally liable for operating it without a license (Verse ‏113-‏125 above).  However, this is not enough to determine that defendant 2's share in the management and promotion of the business is more significant than that of others who appear in the Registrar of Corporations as having identical functions, and accordingly, this is not sufficient to determine that the enforcement against him and not against others is not arbitrary.
175. And if the accuser sought to base the distinction in enforcement on the difference between the part of defendant 2 and the share of others in the actual management, she should have argued this in Rachel, your little daughter, to bring evidence about it at the stage of the prosecution case, or at least to question defendant 2 or the witness on his behalf at the stage of the defense case. These things were not done.  Therefore, the accuser's response to the distinction between defendant 2 and other directors remained lacking and unfounded from an evidentiary point of view.
176. To note that this court was exposed in one of the hearings to the claims of the person who was deleted from the indictment, which may have led to its deletion and to the fact that the other director was never prosecuted (transcript of July 3,2024). However, these arguments were never made by the accuser as a linguistic explanation that she adopted in enforcement, not in response to the preliminary arguments, not at the stage of hearing the witnesses and examining the evidence, nor in the summaries.  Therefore, these are arguments that are not placed before me, and as such they cannot explain the difference in enforcement.
177. It should also be noted that the distinction between defendant 2 and other directors of the company arose in Edelstein's cross-examination. Edelstein explained that defendant 2 found himself in the present indictment, as opposed to all those others who are registered as similar officers in the business, for the reason that he himself had signed the application for a business license.  Defendant 2, for his part, denied this, saying that someone else had submitted the document on his behalf, and that he knew nothing about its contents.  According to him, the email address specified in the application was also not his (p.  79, paras.  4-10,15-17).  In support of this, the defense filed an application for a business license (P/7, p.  65, questions 3-33, p.  66, questions 1-4, p.  78, questions 22-25, p.  79, questions 11-12).
178. I have reviewed the wording of the application that was submitted for my review, N/7. It should be noted that the prosecution did not submit a version of an application for a business license in the framework of the prosecution case, and that the wording that I saw in the response to the preliminary arguments was similar to the current version.  The application that was submitted to me, and which I examined, does mention the name of defendant 2, but it appears that it was filed by another, who from other documents in the file appears to be the architect who was the architect in the application, and that it lacks the signature of defendant 2.  Edelstein himself testified that the accuser insists on registering the name of a person and not just a corporation in every application for a business license, for the purposes of future liability of a person of flesh and blood.  The impression received was that this was a very significant registration, but I have not heard of any mechanism in which the authority verifies that a person who is registered as an applicant is indeed registered on his own accord.  The accuser claims in her summaries that it is "inconceivable" that defendant 2 in his position was not aware of the registration of his name on the application (paragraph 13 of the accuser's summaries).  With all due respect, in the absence of a mechanism that verifies the identity of the person who was registered as the applicant of the application, such an argument is not enough to turn a document that does not even bear the signature of the accused, into ground on which a person's criminal responsibility can be based.
179. Beyond that, I see difficulty in relying on the name of the subscriber in the application for a business license as a relevant distinction between different officers in the business when choosing which of them to prosecute. In my opinion, when there are several officers in the business, and the law imposes liability on all of them, it is not right to refrain from prosecuting all those whoignore their regulatory obligations and do not register in the license application, and to decide to prosecute the officer who is working to regulate the license in the business and whose name appears on the license application.  The choice to enforce against the person who registered his name and not against others, constitutes a negative incentive to act to regulate and cooperate with the authority, is inconsistent with the purposes of the law, and is also intended to be irrelevant for the purpose of determining criminal liability.
180. In the totality of the circumstances, I find that the defendant pointed out a difference between the enforcement policy adopted against him and the enforcement policy adopted towards other officers in the business. The accuser did not deal with the said difference, neither in her arguments nor in her evidence.  Therefore, I accept the selective enforcement argument that was made in this context.
181. In my opinion, since we are dealing with officials who are registered in the same manner, and no satisfactory explanation is given for the difference between them that justified enforcement against one and not against two others, this is a defect that has a very significant strength, and it goes to the root of the matter.
182. The question is what remedy should be given in this context - whether the indictment against defendant 2 should be canceled, or whether it is possible to suffice with another means, for example in the framework of the sentencing considerations as part of the sentence. Having considered the matter, I am of the opinion that a more proportionate remedy cannot be sufficed in this context, and the indictment should be dismissed.
183. In this context, I see importance in the intensity of the defect, when there is weight to the fact that defendant 2 himself worked day and night to arrange the business license (para. ‏113-‏125 above), And he was also the only one whose name was mentioned in the license application, Which, on the face of it, is supposed to reduce his criminal responsibility and not exacerbate it (v.  ‏179 above).
184. To sum up: I do not believe that it was permissible to operate the business without a license, even if great efforts were made to regulate the license. This is especially the case with regard to the nature of the business, its essence, its size and its other characteristics.  The same applies to the judicial order that hovered over the business for a long time, and was not even requested to be delayed.  In this context, I see a particular difficulty in operating the business without a license with regard to defendant 1, who has been operating in the business without a license for years, despite a judicial order that was given to her personally and which is pending against her personally.  Beyond that, I am of the opinion that there is a legal and even substantial justification to prosecute the officers who operate the business as well.  However, when the officers are prosecuted, all of them must be prosecuted, or well explained with arguments and evidence as to why only one of them was prosecuted, which is quite clear that he was behind the regularization efforts.  In the absence of a substantive and satisfactory reason for the distinction between the various officers, this is a fundamental defect for which the appropriate remedy is the cancellation of the indictment in relation to Defendant 2.

Conclusion and Conclusion

185. With the consent of the parties as recorded in the minutes of the hearing of January 22,2026, the verdict is published in the court of law.
186. In all the circumstances, after hearing the evidence of the parties and reviewing their arguments, I order the cancellation of the indictment in relation to Defendant 2, on the grounds of protection from justice.
187. The right to appeal within 45 days to the Tel Aviv District Court.
188. At the same time, I convict defendant 1 of offenses under sections 4,14 and 18 of the Business Licensing Law.
189. Arguments for the sentence of defendant 1 will be heard before me on October 5,2026 at 12:00.
190. The secretariat will set a diary and will notify.

Granted today, August 26,2026, in the absence of the parties.