When one of two importers who jointly imported jacuzzi systems to Israel discovered that the other importer informed the manufacturer that it does not intend to continue importing these systems to Israel, it demanded compensation for the dissolution of the partnership.
The Court rejected the claim after determining that the relationship between the two importers does not meet the definition of partnership. The existence of a partnership requires the existence of three cumulative conditions: [a] two individuals or more; [b] managing a business together; and [c] for profit. When one party intended to form a partnership and the other does not - the existence of the above conditions (and therefore of the partnership) will be reviewed by objective tests regardless of the subjective beliefs of the parties. In particular, it will examined , inter alia: equal right to manage the business; participation in profits and losses; joint taking of risks arising from the investments and the period of time in which the relationship lasted. Here, it is two separate business owners who collaborated for the purpose of importing jacuzzi systems from a certain manufacturer but each of which managed its own business (costs, marketing, sales, prices, investments etc.) in a completely segregated manner and all of this was meant to be for a short period of time (about a year). These characteristics teach that it is a cooperation, which is less than "partnership" in its legal sense and thus, no partnership existed.