How an Australian Director Answered an Unlawful Israeli Record Demand

Result: A NIS 480,000 a year Israeli board appointment taken up after an unlawful conviction disclosure demand was withdrawn and the Section 19 limitation period confirmed as expired · Timeline: 9 weeks · Challenge: Israeli company demanded a criminal record declaration · Authority: Israel Police criminal information registry · Financial Impact: NIS 480,000 a year

Background

A structural engineer of 58, an Australian citizen and Israeli dual national, has lived in Sydney since 2015. The Australian engineering group he consults to acquired a Tel Aviv subsidiary in 2025 and asked him to take a seat on its board, with a consultancy attached worth NIS 480,000 a year. He speaks Hebrew, he knows the sector, and the appointment was agreed in principle over two calls.

Then the onboarding pack arrived from the Israeli company's corporate secretary. Among the forms was a compliance questionnaire with a declaration to be sworn before a notary: a list of every criminal conviction recorded against him in any jurisdiction, with dates and sentences. He had one. In 2013 he was convicted at the Magistrates Court in Rishon LeZion of an offence of dishonesty in a business matter and fined NIS 18,000, with no custodial term imposed. He also had an earlier conviction from 2006. He had told nobody in Australia, the group's own background screening had never touched it, and he had drafted an answer disclosing both when he called us.

The Challenge

The questionnaire was not a condition he had to meet. It was an offence. Since 12 July 2022 the Criminal Information and Rehabilitation of Offenders Law 5779-2019 has replaced the old Criminal Register and Rehabilitation of Offenders Law 5741-1981, and Section 3(b) prohibits any person from demanding criminal information otherwise than in accordance with the Law. The prohibition reaches indirect demands as squarely as direct ones, which is exactly what an affidavit, a declaration or a questionnaire at the bottom of an appointment pack is. Section 42(a) makes the demand punishable by up to one year of imprisonment, rising to two years where it is connected to an employment decision. The bodies entitled to receive criminal information at all are listed exhaustively in Section 11 and its schedule, and they are public and security bodies. A private Israeli company recruiting a director is not among them.

The client's instinct, formed entirely in Australia, ran the other way. Under Part VIIC of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth), the Commonwealth spent convictions scheme, an adult conviction generally becomes spent after ten years where the sentence did not exceed 30 months, and it is unlawful to take a spent conviction into account after that. What the scheme also does is normalise the request itself: an Australian employer asking a candidate to consent to an AFP National Police Check is doing something routine and lawful, and the group's own global screening standard was written around it. Transplanted to Israel, the same request is an offence, and answering it voluntarily converts information the law had already walled off into a document sitting in a corporate file in two countries.

The second question was where he actually stood on the statutory clocks, because that determined how confidently the appointment could proceed at all.

In Practice: Section 3(b) of the Criminal Information and Rehabilitation of Offenders Law 5779-2019, in force since 12 July 2022, forbids any person to demand criminal information otherwise than under the Law, and it catches a declaration or questionnaire as much as a direct request. Section 42(a) carries up to one year of imprisonment, or two years where the demand relates to an employment decision. The bodies that may lawfully receive the information are the closed list in Section 11 and its schedule, which does not include a private company appointing a director. The lawful substitute is a narrow declaration directed at disqualification from office under Section 226 of the Companies Law 5759-1999, which a company is entitled to take.

What We Did

We answered the corporate secretary in writing within four days rather than negotiating. The letter set out Section 3(b), Section 42(a) and the Section 11 closed list, stated that our client would not be completing the declaration, and offered the alternative in the same paragraph: a declaration confined to whether he is disqualified from serving as a director under Section 226 of the Companies Law 5759-1999. Offering the substitute in the same letter is what keeps a correspondence like this to one round. The company's external counsel withdrew the clause twelve days later and accepted the narrower form.

In parallel we established his own position on the record, which the client is entitled to do even though nobody else may demand it. Section 4(a) gives every person the right to inspect the criminal information held about him, and the registry is maintained by the Israel Police. From Sydney that is not a walk-in errand. The inspection is keyed to an Israeli identity number and needs an Israeli representative acting under a specific power of attorney. He signed before a notary public in Sydney, the document went to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for apostille at AUD 102 and came back in three business days, and the signature was authenticated in Israel at NIS 197 under the Notaries Regulations (Service Fees) 5738-1978. The inspection took four weeks to come back.

The computation was the part that mattered. Section 19 sets the adult limitation period at four years where no term of imprisonment was imposed and there was no earlier conviction, five years for offences of a sexual or violent character, seven years where there was a prior conviction or a prison sentence of up to five years plus the length of that sentence, and ten years plus the sentence above that. His 2006 conviction put the 2013 offence on the seven year track, and no custodial term had been imposed, so limitation ran out in 2020. Section 22 then adds a further erasure period of roughly four to ten years for an adult, after which the person is treated in law as never having been convicted. He is inside that second window, not past it, which means the entry still exists and the Section 11 bodies can still see it. For a board seat at a private company, none of that is anybody's business.

In Practice: Section 19 of the same Law puts an adult conviction with a prior record on a seven year limitation track plus any custodial term, against four years where there was no prior conviction and no imprisonment. Section 22 adds a further erasure period of roughly four to ten years, after which the conviction is treated as never having occurred. Inspect your own entry under Section 4(a) through the Israel Police, which from abroad needs a specific power of attorney apostilled where it is signed, AUD 102 and about three business days at DFAT in Australia, NIS 197 for the Israeli notarial authentication, and about three to six weeks for the result.

The Outcome

He took the board seat nine weeks after the onboarding pack arrived, on a consultancy worth NIS 480,000 a year, having signed a declaration that addresses Section 226 disqualification and nothing else. Total cost of the exercise, including the letter, the power of attorney, the apostille and the registry inspection, came to about NIS 9,400.

The more valuable outcome is the one that did not happen. A sworn declaration listing two Israeli convictions would have gone into the Israeli company's compliance file and, through the group's shared screening system, into an Australian one. Neither would have been lawfully obtained, and neither could have been recalled. He also now knows something he did not know in 2013: that the limitation period has run, that he sits inside the erasure period rather than beyond it, and roughly when that ends.

Key Takeaways

1. An Israeli demand for your criminal record is usually an offence, not a condition of appointment. Section 3(b) covers questionnaires, affidavits and declarations, and Section 42(a) makes the demand punishable by up to two years where employment is involved.
2. Answer in one letter and offer the substitute in it. Citing Section 3(b) alongside a narrow Section 226 declaration ended the correspondence in twelve days without the appointment stalling.
3. Do not reason from the rules at home. The Australian spent convictions scheme makes a police check request normal and lawful; the identical request about an Israeli record is not, and Australian screening cannot reach the Israeli registry in any event.
4. Volunteering the information is what causes the damage. Once disclosed, the entry sits in corporate files in two jurisdictions and cannot be unsaid, whatever the statutory clocks say.
5. Find out where you stand before the question arises. Section 4(a) inspection from abroad costs a notarised and apostilled power of attorney plus about three to six weeks, and the answer is what tells you whether limitation has run. The periods themselves are set out in our answer on when an old Israeli conviction comes off your record.

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Facing a Similar Situation?

If an Israeli company, bank or landlord has asked you to disclose or produce a criminal record, how you answer that request decides whether you are later treated as having volunteered it. Our guide on erasing an old Israeli criminal record from abroad sets out the limitation and erasure periods and who may still lawfully see the entry.

Contact us for a confidential consultation about your Israeli legal matter.