I'm being sued in Israel from the US. Do I have to hand over my American documents and emails?

American litigants arrive at this stage expecting either full-blown US discovery or nothing at all, and Israel gives them neither. There are no depositions and no document requests running for months. What there is instead is a single sworn list, exchanged early, that is far harder to walk back from than an American production ever is, because you swear to it before anyone has argued about what is relevant.

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Detailed Answer

Chapter 9 of the Civil Procedure Regulations 5779-2018 governs the exchange of information between the parties, and it is compact. Under Regulation 57 each party serves, no later than thirty days after the last pleading is filed or within a period the court directs, an affidavit disclosing all documents relating to the matters in dispute that are in the party's possession or control. Regulation 58 then gives the parties thirty days from that exchange to complete inspection, allowing the other side to photograph or scan the documents at the requesting party's expense. Regulation 56 permits a written questionnaire in the same window, capped at fifty questions, answered fully and accurately on affidavit within thirty days. Disputes about disclosure and inspection are raised as motions under Regulation 59, where the court may itself examine a document to rule on a privilege claim rather than take the claim on trust. Regulation 60 supplies the teeth: proper disclosure and inspection are a basic condition of due process, and a party who fails may face an immediate costs order or the striking out of a claim or a defence. The controlling word throughout is control, not location. A document is yours to disclose if you can obtain it, which reaches emails on a US provider's servers, records held by your American accountant, and files a company you control keeps in Delaware.

Two frictions are peculiar to a party in the United States and both are practical rather than legal. The first is the affidavit itself. It has to be sworn, and a US-based deponent normally signs before a notary public with an apostille under the Hague Convention, or before an Israeli consular officer, and the Israeli court works in Hebrew, so the substantive exhibits usually need notarial translation. Building that package around a thirty-day clock, across time zones, is the single most common reason non-resident defendants are late. The second is privilege, and here the mismatch bites. Israeli privilege is defined by Section 48 of the Evidence Ordinance [New Version] 5731-1971, and the categories do not map onto US work-product doctrine or onto the treatment of in-house counsel communications. Documents an American lawyer would confidently withhold are not automatically protected in Tel Aviv, and the safe course is to list them and claim privilege expressly under Regulation 59 rather than to omit them, because omission from a sworn list is what turns a legal argument into a credibility problem.

In Practice: Under Regulation 57 of the Civil Procedure Regulations 5779-2018 a party sued in Israel must serve a sworn affidavit of documents within 30 days of the last pleading, covering everything in their possession or control wherever it is physically kept; Regulation 58 allows 30 days from the exchange for inspection at the requesting party's cost, and Regulation 56 caps a questionnaire at 50 questions answered on affidavit within 30 days. Regulation 60 permits an immediate costs order or the striking out of a claim or defence for non-compliance. For a US-based party the affidavit is sworn before a notary and apostilled, and the Israeli court fee already paid on a District Court claim runs at 2.5% of the sum in dispute under the Courts Regulations (Fees) 5767-2007, so a disclosure default that gets a defence struck out forfeits a real sum as well as the case.

When to Consult a Lawyer

• The documents sit with a US entity you do not personally own. Control is a question of fact and it is argued, not assumed, and getting it wrong in either direction is costly: over-disclose and you hand over material you never had to, under-disclose and you have sworn a false affidavit.
• You are holding back communications on privilege. Claim it on the face of the Regulation 57 list and litigate it under Regulation 59, because Israeli privilege under Section 48 of the Evidence Ordinance is narrower in places than the US equivalent and silently omitting documents is treated as concealment.
• Thirty days is not enough to collect and apostille the material. Extensions are obtainable but only in advance; asking after the deadline has passed converts a scheduling problem into a Regulation 60 sanctions hearing. See our answer on being served with an Israeli lawsuit while living in the USA.

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Speak With an Israeli Attorney

The Israeli disclosure window is short, sworn and effectively one-shot, and for a party in the United States the work of collecting, notarising and translating has to start before the pleadings close, not after.

Contact us for a confidential initial consultation.