The cooperative societies department at our firm is one of the largest and leading such departments in Israel, and is consistently ranked amongst the prominent departments in this field by the prestigious BDI Code and Dun’s 100 indices. The department provides legal services and ongoing counsel to dozens of cooperative societies throughout Israel, addressing a wide range of aspects such as taxation, real estate, contracts, and labor law, and representing them in various courts in arbitration and mediation proceedings.
The department’s client base includes moshavim and kibbutzim (collective communities) and their members, central cooperatives, settlements that are organized as cooperative societies but are not kibbutzim or moshavim, agricultural cooperatives in various sectors and water associations.
The department’s legal team comprises leading attorneys in their field, who have extensive experience and an in-depth understanding of the unique fabric of the cooperative society. Our attorneys are present at all of the firm’s offices, providing ongoing counsel to each cooperative society and its authorities and dealing with all legal matters, including land arrangements within the kibbutz framework and in privatization processes, and tending to property rights within the moshav and debt arrangements to the Israel Land Authority, community expansions, apartment attributions, providing ongoing counsel to cooperative management teams and position holders, and accompanying various procedures and decision making processes within the cooperative. This includes counsel pertaining to the assignment of assets and capital attribution, providing legal accompaniment to General Secretaries of kibbutzim and moshavim, arranging cooperative society relations with the local committee, preparing terms of agreement, providing counsel on various tax aspects and tax planning, and representing kibbutzim in claims by their members, amongst others.
The department represents cooperative societies in diverse processes and structural changes, such as capital attribution and asset assignments to members, as well as throughout the process of establishing agricultural organizations and conducting a wide range of commercial transactions.
Furthermore, the department accompanies cooperatives throughout planning processes and in their exchanges with planning and construction committees, as well as with the Israel Land Authority. These include diverse transactions pertaining to lands belonging to the cooperatives, and processes of reassigning lands for non-agricultural activities.
The cooperative societies department at our firm has acquired exceptional experience in offering comprehensive counsel to productive cooperative societies on issues of labor and tax, representing them in a diverse array of transactions, as well as assisting them in payment collection, structural changes, etc.
This department deals with all aspects pertaining to the establishment of cooperatives, starting with the founders agreement, editing the terms of agreement and facilitating its approval by the Registrar of Cooperative Societies, and operating the cooperative’s institutions during the establishment process.
In the water sector, our department provides counsel and full representation to cooperative societies in their endeavors with the Israeli Water Authority and Ministry of Agriculture, dealing with disputes between members, representing them in proceedings and appearing before the Water Court, tending to licensing and registration for the production and supplying of water, and also advises on various projects, such as water plants, pumped energy reserves and water desalination facilities.
