Court Dismisses Class Action Against Shufersal Over Digital Receipts
The Central District Court in Lod has dismissed a class action lawsuit against Shufersal, ruling that promotional content attached to digital receipts is legal. The plaintiff was ordered to pay 60,000 shekels in costs across two dismissed cases.
The Central District Court in Lod has dismissed a multi-million-shekel class action lawsuit against Shufersal, ruling that attaching minor promotional content to digital receipts does not violate Israel's anti-spam telecommunications law. Presiding Judge Carmit Eliezer ruled that as long as a customer consents to receive a digital invoice and the accompanying promotional material is limited and secondary to the service message, sending the invoice is lawful.
The landmark legal proceeding was initiated by Attorney Lior Chaik following purchases at Be Pharm, a subsidiary of Shufersal. The plaintiff argued that after consenting to receive digital receipts via SMS text message, promotional content inviting customers to join the loyalty club and enjoy discounts was included at the bottom of the message. The petitioner claimed this constituted an unauthorized commercial transmission without explicit opt-in consent.
Judge Eliezer accepted Shufersal's defense, drawing a clear distinction between communications primarily commercial in nature and those with a core service purpose. The court established that the primary function of the transmission was service-oriented—delivering the requested receipt—and contained information identical to traditional paper receipts. Furthermore, the court emphasized that the transition to digital invoicing is a favorable environmental policy that should be encouraged.
The court noted that even if a violation had been proven, the circumstances did not justify a class action due to negligible alleged harm weighed against public resources. The judge observed that the plaintiff had previously been involved in 11 similar petitions, most of which ended in compensated withdrawals, whereas this case proceeded through full evidentiary hearings.
Concluding the proceedings, the court dismissed the certification request and ordered the plaintiff to pay Shufersal 30,000 shekels in legal costs. Concurrently, a parallel lawsuit filed by the same plaintiff against Alonyal, operator of McDonald's in Israel, was also dismissed with an identical cost order of 30,000 shekels, bringing the total penalties to 60,000 shekels across both cases.
