Haifa Court Dismisses 500,000 Shekel SLAPP Suit Against Ex-Employee
A Haifa labor court dismissed a 500,000 shekel lawsuit against a former employee, ruling it a SLAPP suit and ordering the company to pay 25,000 shekels in legal costs for fabricated claims.
A labor court in Haifa has dismissed a 500,000 shekel lawsuit filed by a business promotion center against a former employee, ruling it was a SLAPP suit designed to intimidate him. Judge Tal Golan ordered the company to pay 25,000 shekels in legal costs, an unusually high sum in Israeli labor tribunals.
The case centers on the Israel Center for Business Promotion on the Web, owned by Daniel Shoval, with her husband Tzachi Shoval serving as business development manager. The company claimed that former sales agent Guy Yanchik stole trade secrets and wiped its database. However, the lawsuit was filed three and a half years after the alleged events, and notably three years after Yanchik had himself sued the company for 160,000 shekels.
Judge Golan firmly rejected the company's explanations for the delay, which included the pandemic, the war, and a maternity leave in 2021. The court found that the alleged hacking and data theft were entirely fabricated events. Furthermore, the company failed to prove that Yanchik had access to its computers or that any proprietary database actually existed.
The court also highlighted a troubling pattern of behavior, noting that the company had similarly sued another former employee, Tal Cohen, only to drop the claims after Cohen made concessions in his own legal action. Judge Golan emphasized that the company made severe, unproven allegations bordering on criminal conduct, while the firm itself was found to have unlawfully breached the private email accounts of its former staff.
Deterring Intimidatory Lawsuits
In justifying the substantial costs awarded, Judge Golan stressed the judiciary's duty to provide an effective remedy against strategic lawsuits against public participation, known as SLAPP suits. These legal actions carry a chilling effect designed to deter litigants from asserting their statutory rights.
The ruling noted several aggravating factors that warranted such a punitive cost order, including the severity of the baseless accusations, the significant procedural delay, the strategic timing of the lawsuit, and the documented pattern of silencing former employees through litigation. Public representatives Ada Neizer-Rothschild and Ephraim Rosenberg concurred with the ruling.
