In a blow to Minister of Finance Moshe Kahlon and victory for Israel's senior bank executives, theHigh Court of Justicetoday issueda temporary protective injunction against the banking system executive salary law.
Justice Yoram Danziger issued an interim injunction stating, "Employees of banking corporations and senior executives in these corporations who submit their resignation 45 days after the decision in this petition or the cancellation of the interim injunction will not forfeit their basic entitlement to receive all rights they would have been entitled to following the termination of employer-employee relations or the end of their term of office, if those relations ended at the date of the submission of this petition".
According to the High Court of Justice, reading the law prima facie does not currently enable the employees to properly plan their actions. Due to uncertainty and vagueness regarding the legislator's intentions in several significant points of the law, some bank employees have quit their job and other are considering resigning from the corporations in which they have been working for decades. Some employees are required to submit advance notice 90 days before the law comes into effect - that is, by July 12 2016.
"These claims are not unfounded. The concerns regarding resignation are real and are also expressed by public officials, primarily the Supervisor of Banks. In such a situation and since the requested interim injunction is very limited, I find it preferable to put the situation 'on ice' which will make it possible to conduct this petition without concerns about the loss of seniority benefits looming over bank executives. It should be noted that the issuing of this interim injunction is further justified by the questions raised in the petition, some of them unprecedented questions regarding arrangements which are unknown in other countries."
In addition, Justice Danziger decided that there was viable justification for the demand for a long advance notice period when it concerns senior employees, whose immediate resignation may destabilize bodies managing public funds.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 11, 2016
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