Two scandals reveal the power of gatekeepers in the dark underbelly of the Israeli economy | TV10 Daily
Re: December 22, 2025 in Israel - and what it all means for investors at home and abroad.
Two scandals continue to unfold over the business headlines in Israel today, both revealing how trusted gatekeepers betrayed those they were meant to serve.
The first is the saga of a company called Slice, where we saw a pension management fund and network of insurance agents sell out individual savers, funneling private nest eggs into shady offshore funds to score quick commissions.
In the second, the Israeli labor union affair (Histadrut) we see another betrayal of the collective - with officials who allegedly hijacked the immense buying power of workers’ unions to steer lucrative contracts to cronies, including via an insurance agent.
“Danger to the public”
In the Slice story, there’s a new attempt to recover funds through a major lawsuit - nearly ₪1B - filed today against the company’s controlling shareholder and former directors. The suit alleges “negligent management, serious omissions, and breach of fiduciary duties” that resulted in over ₪850 million in pension savings vanishing.
And in the Histadrut affair, an Israeli court today extended restrictions on the organization’s once-powerful chairman - banning Arnon Bar-David, suspected of accepting bribes, fraud, and breach of trust, from serving as chairman or approaching Histadrut offices for an additional three months. The judge didn’t mince words, describing the chairman as a “danger to the public” whose return to power would threaten the integrity of the investigation.
The common denominator
The common threads here are middlemen who stand accused of exploiting their gatekeeper role, and their opportunities to weaponize complex financial products -pensions in one case, commercial insurance in the other - as Trojan Horses for enriching a few at the expense of many. Now, justice will be up to the courts.
Nearly a billion shekels wiped out in alleged pension fraud - inside the collapse of Slice
The Slice scandal is a big story because it’s the largest and most serious alleged breach of fiduciary duty in Israel’s pension savings industry in decades. It’s a story of regulatory blind spots, questionable financial engineering, and a predatory scheme that exploited savers during a liquidity crisis.
Earlier today, a ₪950 million lawsuit was filed in Tel Aviv District Court against Slice Provident Fund's controlling shareholder and former directors. The suit, brought by court-appointed Special Administrator Efi Sandrov, alleges "negligent management, serious omissions, and breach of fiduciary duties" that resulted in over ₪850 million in pension savings vanishing. The lawsuit is an attempt to recover that capital.
The macroeconomic trap
The story begins in the shifting macroeconomic landscape of 2022, as the Bank of Israel aggressively hiked interest rates to combat inflation. As the Prime Rate climbed from 1.6% to 6%, cheap credit vanished, leaving households squeezed.
That’s when Slice stepped in with an irresistible offer: transfer your pension savings to a self-managed (IRA) account at Slice and receive an immediate, low-interest loan worth up to 30% of your portfolio. While positioned as a critical source of liquidity for savers, the scheme is claimed to have been a mechanism for capital entrapment.
The diversion scheme
Slice-affiliated insurance agents funneled hundreds of millions of shekels into opaque foreign investment vehicles. According to today’s lawsuit, Slice then submitted false monthly reports to the Capital Market Authority, listing these diverted funds - up to ₪800 million as of Q4 2023 - as “cash holdings.”
When Special Administrator Sandrov took control of the defunct firm earlier this year, he discovered that these funds refused to provide valuations, liquidity confirmations, or proof of assets. The pattern suggests Ponzi-like dynamics - new deposits covering old withdrawals.
Regulatory intervention and clawback
The Capital Market Authority has determined that these investment vehicles did not meet the legal definition of “foreign funds,” rendering the investments illegal from inception. The regulator has issued an aggressive demand for immediate repatriation of all ~₪800 million to a blind trust, a sweeping intervention that underscores the crisis’s severity.
Today’s lawsuit targets 12 defendants, including former CEO Asaf Goldberg (who also served as a major shareholder, director, and investment committee member), his father Shimon Goldberg (director and major shareholder), former board chair Anat Taub, and multiple former directors. The suit also names former CFO Ze’ev Levinger, former external auditor Yaron Barhum, and former legal counsel Yosef Porat.
Sandrov stated that an additional lawsuit against Slice’s former internal auditors and the insurance company that issued the professional liability policy is being prepared for filing.
The wake-up call
For the Israeli capital markets, the Slice affair is a wake-up call regarding the supervision of alternative investments and the “IRA” loophole. The implosion of Slice reveals how an IRA mechanism, originally designed for financial democratization, introduced shadow banking risks into the pension system. The Capital Market Authority’s unprecedented intervention looks like a tacit admission of its own oversight failure.
The Israeli system is still finding its footing between financial innovation vs. consumer protection.
TASE snapshot for Monday, Dec. 22, 2025
TA-35 Index (TASE:TA35): 🟢 +0.73%
TA-90 (TASE:TA90): 🔴 -0.18%
TA-125 (TASE:TA125): 🟢 +0.51%
That’s our Monday here in Israel 🎉
If you enjoyed this update, please forward it to a friend.
TV10 Global | Israel for Investors
Bringing you the top stories from the Israeli business community, by Israel’s only business and finance network.
Share your thoughts with us via: global@tv10.co.il or the Newsroom WhatsApp: +972-55-994-5851.
📧 Subscribe to this newsletter! And follow the daily conversation on 𝕏 @tv10global.
Pings available via WhatsApp Channel.
Disclaimer: This brief is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. All data current as of publication date.