20 February 11 13:00

http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000624723&fid=1725

Judge Zvi Gurfinkel: A delay in signing a clause in the law was an administrative process defect.

Arcadi Gaydamak and other people charged in the money laundering case at Bank Hapoalim (TASE: POLI) have won an important legal point, when Tel Aviv District Court Judge Zvi Gurfinkel accepted the defendants' argument that the clause of the law on which the charges in the indictments are based only came into effect after the defendants committed some of the alleged crimes.

Article 3(B) of the Prohibition of Money Laundering Law (5760-2000) stipulates, "A person performing a property transaction or delivering false information with the object of preventing any reporting under section 7 or in order not to report under section 9, or to cause incorrect reporting under the aforesaid sections, shall be liable to the penalty…"

The defendants claim that even though the law limits the minister of justice to signing the directive the coming into effect of this article until February 18, 2002, he only signed it on May 19, 2002, and the law was published on May 22, 2002. The defendants also claim that the final wording of the law was not submitted to the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.

Judge Gurfinkel ruled, "These flaws are technical, and a fair solution in these circumstances is to apply the doctrine of proportional prominence, while stipulating that the date when these chapters in the law came into effect was May 22, 2002."

The ruling means that some of the charges in the case, relating to the period between February 17 and May 22, 2002, will be dropped.