Category: Israel

Israel’s regional tensions contrast with optimistic hopes for foreign investment and a burgeoning economy. While war still rages over the border in nearby Syria, Israel’s start-up and hi-tech sector is flourishing. In addition, its nascent natural gas industry finally looks primed for substantial development.

Life is good in Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv, says Barry Levenfeld, a partner at Yigal Arnon & Co: ‘Economically and politically, Israel remains stable, while our neighbours are more dangerous by the minute. Sitting here on the 47th floor in Tel Aviv, looking across the Mediterranean and with all the restaurants and coffee houses below, you just wouldn’t know that any of this was going on.’ Continue reading “Value range – as the money pours in, can Israel takes its high-growth stars global?”

Barry Levenfeld is a regular visitor to Silicon Valley. The technology and life sciences specialist at Israeli firm Yigal Arnon & Co has to fly from Tel Aviv to San Francisco, via New Jersey or Los Angeles. Currently the journey takes around 20 hours.

However, he hopes that an online petition to establish a direct flight between Tel Aviv and San Francisco will lead to a more civilised journey. The proposed 14.5-hour flight will usher Israeli high-flyers straight into the growth company and venture capital centre of the world.

Continue reading “Scale-up nation – chasing Israel’s high growth clients”

In a Tel Aviv conference in June this year, DLA Piper, White & Case, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Weil, Gotshal & Manges will rub shoulders with Israel’s legal elite in discussing the liberalisation and internationalisation of the country’s legal market. The conference, hosted by the Tel Aviv District Israel Bar Association and legal marketing and consulting company Robus, highlights the growing presence of international law firms in Israel. And while this may bear all the hallmarks of another instance of empire building by international advisers, the reality is actually a little more nuanced.

Israel may have only just liberalised its legal market to allow foreign entrants – through an order passed by the Israeli finance minister in August 2012 – but many firms have long been present in the jurisdiction unofficially. Regardless of whether the liberalisation process will fundamentally alter the state of the market or not, there is concern about its effect on the domestic Bar, which is already saturated by highly qualified Israeli lawyers, including immigrants who previously practised overseas.

Continue reading “Israel – New Heights”

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s ‘man on the ground’ in Tel Aviv, Adir Waldman, had a relatively typical New England upbringing. Having grown up in Fairfield, Connecticut, the academically gifted Waldman studied at nearby Yale University, before returning two years later to attend Yale Law School, where he became senior editor of The Yale Law Journal.

In between, Waldman took the unusual step of serving in the Israeli army for 18 months. ‘I had been accepted for law school and I knew that I didn’t want to go directly. Thankfully, Yale has a policy of actively encouraging students to take a year or two off to do interesting things,’ he says. The army was a positive experience and serves him well in his current position. ‘I certainly know most of my Hebrew from the army and I probably feel more at home here as a result,’ he comments. Continue reading “Israel – Peak performance”