Welcome back to the podcast,

Brib, Swindle, or Steele.

Today is a third in our country-specific series with a spotlight on Israel.

I'm speaking with Haim Gelfand, a lawyer and very experienced compliance professional in the anti-bribery world. I'm a partner at the Israeli firm Shibbolet and Co.

He established and implemented one of Israel's first and most comprehensive anti-corruption policies

under foreign bribery statutes.

Prior to joining his firm, he spent over 10 years working as in-house counsel

on complex international and Israeli

defense transactions. In addition to his anti-corruption compliance experience, Haim leads

Shibolet and Coe's Defense and Homeland Security Practice Group. Hiem, thank you for joining me.

Thank you. Before we talk about the anti-bribery climate in Israel more generally, can you walk

us through the current bribery and fraud charges against Prime Minister Netanyahu and whether

you think they're likely to stick?

First, I'll give it a little bit background.

In Israel, in addition to regular bribery statutes, there is a civic offense, which is called the fraud and breach of public trust, which is used when a public official has interests that are not best for the public and takes into account his own personal gains.

Those are the issues that are at hand.

There are pretty much three cases that are being

discussed right now regarding Prime Minister Netanyahu. They're known as Case 1000, Case 2000,

case 2000. In Case 1000, the issue at hand is gifts of champagne and cigars that Netanyahu,

Prime Minister Netanyahu allegedly received from

Aron Milchen, Israeli-born American-based millionaire who's in the entertainment industry. It's not

100% clear what Prime Minister Netanyahu, if anything, was offering Mr. Milchen in exchange for these gifts,

...