Kfir Yadgar is a managing partner at Gornitzky GNY.
Kfir’s legal expertise is both broad and diverse. He serves as trusted counsel to leading Israeli companies on all aspects of commercial and corporate law, from ongoing matters to complex transactions and regulatory issues. Kfir’s expertise extends to litigation, where he effectively represents clients in resolving financial disputes across various judicial forums. Additionally, he brings extensive experience to managing control struggles and shareholder disputes within companies, and provides counsel on insolvency and financing matters.
A recognized legal authority in Israel’s hospitality and transportation industries, Kfir brings a multidisciplinary approach that integrates his commercial law expertise with sharp business acumen. This, combined with his exceptional ability to see the big picture and evaluate all legal and commercial factors from the client’s perspective, enables him to deliver consistently top-tier legal counsel.
Kfir’s impressive client roster includes some of Israel’s largest and most prominent companies, such as the Fattal Group, Dan Public Transportation Group, Ofer-Melisron Group, Emilia Development Group, Haifa Port, Summit Group, Megureit Israel, InterCure (a biomed company), Atlas Hotels, the Israel Hotel Association, the Brosh Fund, and the Israel Football Association.
Kfir has spearheaded numerous high-profile transactions in recent years. Among the most notable are:
- Represented Melisron in the acquisition of a 50% ownership stake in Aviv Real Estate Development and Management Company, valued at approximately 600 million NIS. This complex transaction involved forming a joint control agreement, establishing Melisron and the Aviv Group as co-owners of the newly formed joint company, Aviv Development.
- Provides ongoing legal representation and counsel to the Dan Public Transportation Group, including allocation of a 50% stake of its shares to an investor; formation of an agreement with Via Transportation Inc.; collaboration with Electreon Wireless for the operation of wireless electric bus lines; negotiating tenders for the operation of public transportation service lines across the country; and drafting financing agreements for the establishment and operation of public transportation clusters.
- Advised Erroca International on the sale of its Erroca sunglasses chain to Super-Pharm.
- Represented Chemomobil (a company in the Emilia Group) in a conditional agreement to acquire the shares of Ofer and Eyal Tabib in Tabib Environment Quality, a hazardous waste management company.
- Facilitated the sale of a portion of shares in Clal Holdings Insurance Enterprises, traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, through three separate transactions totaling hundreds of millions of shekels.
- Provides ongoing legal counsel to the Fattal Group, Israel’s leading hotel chain. This includes acquisitions of hotels in Israel and abroad; management and operation of the VIP terminal at Ben Gurion Airport; negotiating multi-million dollar lease agreements, hotel management, and operation deals; and managing the sale of the Royal Hotel in Berlin.
- Led the structuring of multi-billion euro investment projects for the Fattal Group with Israeli institutional investors. These projects involve acquiring, developing, and renovating hotels across Europe, all managed by Fattal, with a total value of approximately two billion euros.
Kfir’s recent litigation highlights include:
- Represented bondholders of the secured series of All Year Holdings Limited and their trustee in a multi-billion-shekel insolvency case.
- Represented the secured bondholders of Spacecom, holding approximately 1 billion NIS in secured debt with liens on the Amos 3, Amos 4, and Amos 17 satellites.
- Successfully navigated control struggles and shareholder activism cases for companies such as Alcobra, Kamada, Can Fite Biopharma, O.S, and NV Brack.
- Guided the Brosh Fund through complex control struggles within other companies.
- Represented the Chinese investment fund GEOC in a lawsuit against the Israeli startup Cnoga Medical and its founder Dr. Yosef Segman, seeking to cancel and recover a $12 million investment.
- Successfully defended Discount Investment Corporation’s board members before the Supreme Court, resulting in the dismissal of an appeal regarding a derivative claim on alleged illegal dividend distribution. In a landmark ruling, the court clarified the “profit test” for dividend distribution as a technical, retrospective test, limiting the board of directors’ responsibility to the review of financial statements.
- Represented Shufersal, Israel’s largest retail chain, in litigation related to the termination of its partnership with Leumi Card regarding the issuance of credit cards for the Shufersal customer club and the establishment of a new venture with Cal.
- Represented the Israel Football Association in high-stakes litigation, including a 40 million NIS derivative action claim and an 80 million NIS lawsuit filed by Hapoel Tel Aviv’s liquidators.
- Represented InterCure in resolving a shareholder dispute within its subsidiary.
- Provides ongoing legal counsel to the Israel Hotel Association on regulatory matters, including a petition to the High Court of Justice challenging the Israel Tax Authority and Airbnb on the enforcement of short-term rental property taxes.
