Thirteen years after the collapse of the North American Bank, the affair reached an actual end today, with the announcement of an agreement between Joe Nakash and the liquidator’s attorney, Adv. Yossi Segev. According to the agreement, Nakash will pay $6 million to the liquidator’s coffers, while the Nelux company of Luxembourg will pay an additional $4 million.
The bank collapsed in 1985, following the embezzlement by senior managers, who were convicted and served prison sentences. In 1989, Segev filed a law suit against the former board of directors, motioning they be ordered to pay damages caused to the State which covered the bank’s liabilities.
In 1993, the then Jerusalem District Court judge Yaakov Bazak, ordered the former bank’s directors to pay - jointly and separately - $160 million to the bank’s liquidator, which is today $250 million. Since the verdict, Segev reached agreements in the volume of $50 million (including the agreement with Nakash), but in practice only collected $7 million to date.
Two years ago, following the bank affair, Nakash announced he was seeking protection from his creditors to from the New York court, via Chapter 11. Within this framework, Nelux filed proof of debt against Nakash, for more than $30 million. Segev claimed that Nelux was in fact owned by Nakash and the aim of the procedure was to thwart enforcing the verdict. Nakash rejected this claim outright.
Published by Israel's Business Arena September 16, 1998