The Legal 500

Legal Developments in Israel

• Perhaps the QuadragaCX Story Will Have a Happy Ending

  While there are the aficionados who will say that cryptocurrencies will free us of the chains of the global financial institutions, on the occasions when the world of cryptocurrencies intersects with the world in which most of us live, the news is generally bleak. While you may not know one side of a Bitcoin from the other, you probably know that its value has crashed over the last 13 months, you may even have heard about some of some of the larger cryptohacks (that is computer heists through which digital currencies belonging to investors are stolen from crypto trading exchanges). And over the last week or so, you may have read on mainstream news sites about the death of Gerald Cotton the CEO of Canada’s largest cryptoexchange QuadragaCX. The death of the CEO of a company that few had previously heard of, was news of course, because in his passing he had taken the passwords to the accounts of his customers with him. The result of this being that about $140 million of their money was stuck somewhere between this world and the celestial ether in which Mr. Cotton now resides. Of course, it wasn’t quite told like that. We were fed terms such as “private keys,” lack of “multi-signature protection,” “cold storage wallets” and more readily understandable – “cryptofraud”. Again!
  - Yigal Arnon & Co

• Israel Chapter in The Virtual Currency Regulation Review

  Earlier this year, the Israel Tax Authority (ITA) issued two circulars, one on the taxation of digital tokens and the second addressing the taxation of utility tokens in initial coin offerings (ICOs). Additionally, in March, the Israel Securities Authority (ISA) released a detailed interim report by the Committee for the Regulation of Public Offerings of Decentralized Cryptocurrency Coins (Report) (with a follow-up report due to come out around October 2018). Moreover, it is expected that before the end of 2018, legislation will come into force that for the first time will see Israeli primary legislation define virtual currencies as financial assets and mandate licensing for related services, as is later discussed in detail.
  - Yigal Arnon & Co

• Spring is coming for real estate registration in Israel

  Israel may be the “Start-up Nation” and a world-renowned center of technological innovation, yet for many years the procedures and conduct of the Israeli Land Registry have been trapped in the past.
  - Yigal Arnon & Co

• PLATFORMS FOR HIGH NET WORTH INVESTORS IN ISRAELI HIGH-TECH

  Israeli hi-tech and its sources of funding have grown and diversified tremendously since the bubble burst in 2001 and over the last decade since the height of the financial crisis in 2007-2008.
  - Yigal Arnon & Co

• NONDISCRIMINATION IN 5G STANDARDS

  Nondiscrimination has been the neglected stepchild of the FRAND commitment. Patent owners participating in standards organizations typically commit to license their technology on “fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (“FRAND”) terms.”
  - Yigal Arnon & Co

• Crash Course on Non-Disclosure Agreements

  Non-disclosure agreements are a crucial, but often overlooked, tool in allowing startup companies to grow, build strategic partnerships and explore new business relationships necessary to develop their product or bring it to market. These agreements are often short (sometimes only a page or two) and lead many founders to forego legal advice to get past this "formality" and begin working with the other party to the NDA. Yet, NDAs are important agreements with potentially far-reaching implications for the protection of a company's confidential information and intellectual property, and mishandling of NDAs can come back to haunt a startup years later.
  - Yigal Arnon & Co

• Advocates Eli Greenbaum and Ezra Gross of Yigal Arnon & Co. in The Lawyer Special Report editorial

  An interview-style piece in The Lawyer, Law in Israel: moving beyond tech, quoting Eli Greenbaum and Ezra Gross:
  - Yigal Arnon & Co

• Publication of Adv. Adrian Daniel's Commentary in Private Banker International on GDPR & Blockchain

  Publication of Adv. Adrian Daniel's Commentary in Private Banker International on GDPR & Blockchain.
  - Yigal Arnon & Co

• Article in MEA Markets on GDPR & Israeli Law

  GDPR & ISRAELI PRIVACY LAW - KEY DIFFERENCES Yoheved Novogroder-Shoshan & Miriam Friedmann of Yigal Arnon & Co. outline the key differences between GDPR & Israeli Privacy Law.  mea_markets_-_gdpr__israeli_law_-_key_differences_14.05.2018
  - Yigal Arnon & Co

• Clarifications regarding Supervision of Financial Services Law (Regulated Financial Services)

  Authored by Adv. Simon Weintraub, Adv. Shiri Shaham, Adv. Yuval Shalheveth of Israeli law firm, Yigal Arnon & Co.:
  - Yigal Arnon & Co