Two people founded a medical tourism company. In retrospect, it turned out that one of them provided services to company clients through a business of his wife, which uses a domain almost identical to the company’s domain name, but with a hyphen (the domain of the company is www.topichilov.com, while the competing business uses: www.top-ichilov.com).
The Court held that diverting company clients to the competing business constitute the tort of passing-off. Israeli law defines passing-off as a situation in which a business causes an asset it sells or a service it provides to be mistakenly considered as an asset or service of another business, or as having a connection to another business. The tort of passing-off has two cumulative elements: The reputation of the business with respect to which the passing-off was committed, and deception by the other business in such a way as to make the public think that their business is identified with the reputable business. Deception is reviewed by a "triple test": The eye and sound test; Type of goods and the type of customers test; and the other circumstances of the matter test. Here, the company has a reputation in the field of medical tourism and comparing the domain names, it seems that it is completely identical with the exception of a hyphen added to the competitor's domain name, as is the case with the sound test. In terms of the type of customers, both appealed to a similar clientele from among Russian residents interested in medical treatments. Therefore, the acts amount to the tort of passing-off in such a way as to entitle the company to compensation in the amount of ILS 100,000.