Zecler Argov Antitrust, Litigation and Counseling

Zecler Argov, Law Firm is ranked as one of Israel’s leading Competition law firms by both local and international guides. Firm co-founder Niv Zecler is considered one of Israel’s leading Competition lawyers, consistently ranked as a top tier lawyer. He has been included for many years in the “Hall of Fame” of “Legal 500” and ranked as top tier lawyer among others.
Adv. Niv Zecler maintains over 25 years of expertise in all aspects of competition law. Niv served as legal counsel and Director of the Legal Department of the Israeli Competition Authority, and upon completing his term, he turned to private practice: Niv founded Weinstock Zecler (WZ) in 1998, and headed a team which practiced Antitrust for 20 years. At the end of 2018 WZ merged with one of the leading law firms in Israel, and in 2020 a new boutique firm emerged, Zecler Argov, including partners Ofer Argov and Shiran Sofer.
The firm’s team has a long history and vast experience in competition law and has been involved in most of the criminal procedures, complex litigations, and merger cases in the field over the last decades.
All of the firm’s team maintain vast experience pertaining to managing legal processes. The combination of our exper-tise in competition law and vast experience regarding managing legal processes and appearing in the courtroom is unique and enables our firm to provide clients with the most comprehensive and practical legal representation of the highest standard regarding competition law and spearhead its fields of expertise in Israel.

Fields of Expertise

Competition Litigation - Zecler Argov maintains special expertise in competition law and in managing complex legal procedures, including representing clients in class actions and administrative procedures vis-à-vis the Competition Authority. We are a leader in representing defendents in antitrust class actions, due to the many cases the team handled over the years: class actions against global cartels, local cartels; against monopolies accused with abuse of dominant position, class actions drawn to criminal convictions, and more. We represent our clients in administrative procedures before the Competition Authority and the Competition Tribunal, including administrative fines, appeals and petitions to approve a restrictive agreement, and in appeals before the High Court of Justice especially against decisions blocking mergers.

Class Actions - International Cartels - Zecler Argov specializes in managing class actions filed in Israel involving international cartels, whose malfeasance may have occurred outside of Israel. These class actions raise complex and novel questions regarding various aspects of competition law and class action law. We are currently representing clients in several class actions, including against the Forex cartel; the ODD (optical disk drivers) cartel: the Plug cartel.

Criminal Investigations and Representation in Criminal Charges - We represent clients in criminal investigations and in criminal charges, both, pertaining to competition law. This is a unique field that requires expertise both in competition law as well as criminal procedures; additional crimes beyond antitrust violations may be included in such prosecutions: fraudulently accepting goods, money laundering, and bribery. Zecler Argov has the institutional history in competition law to understand all aspects of these criminal proceedings. That plus our vast practical experience in criminal case management is unique for Israel, enabling us to provide representation that clients cannot find elsewhere. Examples of such criminal defense representation include: one of the largest bakeries in Israel in a criminal proceeding regarding agreements to divide the market of bakeries in Israel (the bread cartel); a travel company and its owner in a criminal proceeding regarding educational tours to Poland (the Poland travel cartel); investigations against transportation companies and more.

Strategic and Business Counseling regarding Competition Matters - Our team can rely on decades of antitrust legal counsel to educate our clients on competition law to help them minimize their exposure and manage antitrust risks so that they may fulfill their business goals. We create practical solutions thanks to our in-depth expertise and cutting-edge knowledge in competition law, both in Israel and worldwide.

Merger Transactions - Zecler Argov advises clients through their merger planning to ensure they avoid any antitrust issues. From the initial planning of the transaction to the submission of the merger announcement, and up through receiving approval from the Director General of the Competition Authority in Israel, our competition lawyers are there at every step.
We also offer extensive litigation experience before the Competition Tribunal. We are called to help in cases in which the Director General of the Competition Authority in Israel objects the requested merger, and our help is needed to get the merger approved.

Compliance, Monitoring and Internal Investigations - For clients across the spectrum of Israeli industries, we prepare and implement internal competition compliance programs. These industries include food retailers, pharmaceutical (including pharmaceutical chains as well as an international pharma company), cellular companies, computer companies, and more.

Regulation - We specialize in all aspects of economic regulation which interwinds with antitrust law, including regulation under The Promotion of Competition in the Food Sector law in Israel, regulation under the Israeli Concentration Law, under the Telecom Law, National Health Insurance Law and others. Zecler Argov has a long relationship with clients in various industries including food, retail, beverage, pharmacy, media, electricity industries; we also have expertise with the communication industry, including telecoms, mobile, and other subindustries in this field.

Anti-Dumping - Our firm specializes in representing clients in various matters pertaining to anti-dumping, where foreign competitors dump their products into the Israeli market in contravention of trade laws. Zecler Argov lawyers employ all manner of legal strategy, according to need. We represented a foreign cement manufacturer accused of importing into Israel while dumping its products in the market. After turning to us for counsel, and lengthy proceedings, we successfully satisfied the courts and authorities that there was no dumping or injury to the local market and therefore no increased dumping levy was imposed. We have also been involved in investigation of alleged dumping in Cannabis flowers imported from Canada.

Anti Bribery and Corruption - Zecler Argov’s expertise in economic and business-related criminal investigations, proceedings and compliance has been extended to accusations of bribery of foreign officials by Israeli citizens. Our team works seamlessly with one of the leading international firms in the field of corrupt foreign practices to help clients in these matters.