The State of Israel v. Chen Fisher Gabbay Law Office

Three disputed deliveries, two enforcement proceedings concerning one vehicle loan, and a question running through the record: how could a personal encounter with the defendant in Israel have been reported after the law office was told he was abroad?

The headline compares the requirements of Israeli law with the collected documents. It does not mean that the state has filed criminal charges. The proceedings and allegations remain contested. This investigation distinguishes documents, a party's claims, and procedural decisions. It does not find that any lawyer or process server committed an offence.

The rule: an enforcement warning must reach the person

Under Israeli law, opening a case does not replace notice to the defendant. Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty provides the broader protection of dignity and property. The Civil Procedure Regulations require procedural fairness and prohibit abuse of process. Section 7 of the Execution Law and the Enforcement and Collection Authority's service procedure give that principle practical effect. An enforcement warning lets a person know about a case and pay or object before further steps are taken. A process server's affidavit reporting a refusal to sign can be treated as service. The accuracy of that report therefore matters.

Rules on service, verification of affidavits, and factual submissions to a tribunal each apply in their own setting. Rule 34 of the professional ethics rules prohibits a lawyer from advancing an assertion known to be false. The question here is who knew what, and when.

May 2024: Chen Fisher law office was told the defendant was abroad

The sequence begins before the pledge enforcement case. On 17 April 2024, the defendant asked a Mizrahi Tefahot Leasing representative for the loan settlement figure so that he could sell the vehicle. On 2 May, a WhatsApp message came from a representative who identified herself as working for the Chen Fisher law office. The defendant replied in writing that he was abroad, no longer lived at the address later used in service reports, and wanted a copy of his passport and entry visa added to the file. He said this mattered so that notices would not be served without his knowledge. On 9 May he received a debt figure of NIS 153,263.10 without a full breakdown. The exchange establishes that the office received information about his location and address. It does not establish which of Victor Fisher, Ofer Chen, or Elad Gabbay personally read it.

Another record remains unavailable to the defendant. Responding to a February 2026 inspection request, Mizrahi Tefahot Leasing referred to an “economic investigation” and a “background check report” and refused to disclose them, saying the material was exchanged with its lawyers and was privileged. The defendant says the investigation report stated that he was outside Israel and that the file reached Chen Fisher Gabbay with this information. The reports themselves were not supplied to the archive reviewed for this article. Their contents, transmission date, and readers cannot be verified here. The directly documented notice is the 2 May exchange with the office, followed by another message on 10 December 2024 stating that he was abroad.

June 2024: a receiver application and a disputed affidavit

On 10 June 2024, Mizrahi Tefahot Leasing representative Yaniv Perlov signed an affidavit submitted to enforce the vehicle pledge. The application sought the appointment of a receiver and seizure of the vehicle before a warning was sent, citing an alleged risk that it would disappear. Pledge case 515509-06-24 opened on 24 June. In early July, attorney Victor Fisher was appointed receiver over the rights in the vehicle. A vehicle sold by a receiver is not an abstract issue here: the application sought control over the vehicle securing the loan before warning was served.

In the affidavit certification, Victor Fisher wrote that Perlov “appeared before me” and signed in his presence. Asked at a hearing in the pledge case on 13 January 2026 where he signed, Perlov replied: “At my office. We use electronic signature verification.” The written certification and that answer leave a factual gap: how was the declarant identified, warned, and asked to sign? The defendant calls the affidavit false. The available records do not resolve any criminal or disciplinary issue. The gap does not disappear because the proceeding continued.

December 2024: the first warning in a case represented by Victor Fisher

On 3 December 2024, bill enforcement case 506468-12-24 opened in Netanya over the same vehicle loan. The service certificate for the warning issued on 15 December identifies Victor Fisher as counsel for the creditor. On 10 December, before the alleged service, the defendant again told the office in writing that he was abroad.

The printed address on the warning certificate gave a locality and house number, but no street name; a street name was added by hand. That alone does not prove the server failed to reach the locality. It calls for examination of the address he actually received and how he located it. A report by Na'amana Salama Legal Deliveries says the search began at an address supplied “by your office.” The process server's affidavit contains no statement by Victor Fisher or Ofer Chen specifying what either man gave the server. The later report, dated 25 December, was addressed to attorney Ofer Chen. The documents thus connect Fisher and Chen to different recorded roles in the service chain. They do not show who personally instructed the server.

The server's affidavit and tracing report describe a personal encounter with the defendant on 22 December 2024 and his refusal to sign. By contrast, the official entry and exit certificate places the defendant continuously outside Israel from 7 November 2023 until 12 July 2025. The reported encounter in Israel on that date is inconsistent with the certificate. On 20 January 2025, the warning status was manually updated to “refused to sign,” and the deadline to object was set for the next day. On 29 January, NIS 21,456.50 in additional attorney fees was added to the case.

After the defendant produced the travel record, the enforcement registrar found on 21 October 2025 that he was outside Israel on the reported service date. The registrar moved the service date to the date the objection was filed and cancelled steps taken and the additional attorney fee. That decision changed the procedural and financial consequences of this service report. It did not identify who created the report or what each lawyer knew.

April and December 2025: two further disputed deliveries

In the pledge case, another enforcement warning was reported as personally served on 21 April 2025, again with a refusal to sign. A process server's affidavit and service certificate accompanied the report, and a tracing report dated 28 April went to the office. The travel certificate also places the defendant outside Israel that day. On 13 January 2026, the registrar in the pledge case changed the service date to 2 December 2025, when the defendant first applied in that case. The same decision denied a stay of proceedings; correction of service did not close the receivership case.

The third incident concerns delivery of a decision to a former address in December 2025, after the defendant had returned to Israel. In his application to set aside service, he claimed the server met the property owner there, was told the defendant did not live there, yet marked inconsistent methods of delivery on the form. That allegation requires further review of the original form and the server's account. There is no final finding on this third delivery, which differs from the two reports whose service dates were changed.

The cost: NIS 5,349.59 in arrears and a bill case balance of NIS 261,374.95

The February 2024 demand letter lists NIS 5,349.59 in arrears and, separately, about NIS 146,000 in outstanding loan balance not yet due. The arrears were therefore not the entire original debt. The bill enforcement application recorded principal of NIS 159,609.83. According to the debt breakdown dated 20 September 2026, the bill case balance was NIS 261,374.95, including NIS 59,907.79 in interest and indexation, NIS 37,328.23 in attorney fees, and NIS 4,529.10 in fees and expenses. The pledge case separately showed NIS 141,871.36. These two balances cannot be added without reconciling the same loan across the two cases.

The defendant mentioned NIS 127 as an initial attorney fee, but that figure was not verified in the principal records examined and is not presented as an established amount. The accounting question is how service, the cancelled fee, and any overlap between the bill and pledge cases affected the balances.

A discrepancy in a new bank case, and what remains open

In February 2026, a separate fixed-sum claim concerning a bank account was opened in the name of Bank Mizrahi Tefahot Ltd. A response filed in September 2026 instead named Mizrahi Tefahot Leasing Ltd. as claimant in its heading. The defendant also points to an opening balance of NIS 35,127.36 in an account printout without the transactions that produced it; the bank disputes his claims. The identity and accounting discrepancies require examination in that separate case. They do not automatically add to the vehicle debt or establish fraud by themselves.

In May 2026, the Magistrates' Court rejected the objection to the bill debt and ordered enforcement to resume. That materially affects the procedural position. It is not a finding that the alleged December 2024 encounter occurred, and it does not resolve the process server's affidavit, the enforcement warning, or the defendant's claim of prior knowledge. A separate article on the conduct of hearings and decisions is planned.

The comparison remains: the law calls for a real opportunity to know and respond. The documents show that the office received notice that the defendant was abroad, that two reports of personal encounters conflict with the travel record, and that service dates were changed after his objections. Personal conduct by Victor Fisher, Ofer Chen, and Elad Gabbay is attributed only where a document connects the individual to it. Fisher appears as the lawyer certifying the affidavit, as receiver, and as the creditor's counsel on the first warning; Chen appears as the addressee of the tracing report. The sources examined reveal no personal act by Gabbay at the service stages. The proceedings remain open, as do the questions about the investigation report, service instructions, and debt accounting.

The case records are held in the review archive. Images of service certificates or affidavits containing the defendant's identifying details are not attached. Publication of redacted versions would require a page-by-page check, including headings, signatures, and file metadata.