An Israeli entrepreneur was surprised to discover that Israeli investors with whom he had conducted advanced negotiations for the joint purchase of real estate in Greece had purchased it themselves, contrary to their statements to him and the agreement between him and the Greek property owner.
The Court accepted the investors’ motion to strike-out the claim, due to the Israeli Court not being the forum of convenience for hearing the contentions. As a general rule, the Israeli Court has international authority to hear disputes brought before it, unless it determined not exercise this authority, inter alia, due to the fact that the local forum is not the forum of convenience. In order to determine whether Israel is the forum of convenience for settling a dispute, three sub-tests have been established, the primary of which is the "most affiliations" test, which examines which legal forum has the most significant and substantial connection to the dispute between the parties and to which the most affiliations lead. Here, it is not a brokerage agreement between Israelis but a dispute based on an agreement for the joint purchase of real estate in Greece, a transaction that had it been concluded would have been subject to Greek property laws and therefore the Greek court is the natural forum for its settling. Additionally, the owner of the real estate is a missing party who is essential for settling the dispute, and he can only be compelled to testify by a Greek Court. The mere fact that the language of the documents exchanged between the parties is Hebrew stems solely from the fact that it is both parties’ mother tongue and cannot be deemed, by itself, an affiliation to the Israeli forum. Therefore, the forum with the most affiliations to the conflict is the Greek forum.