A huge lawsuit has been filed against the controlling shareholders and company officers of failed financial services company Slice. The administrator appointed to the company, Efi Sandrov CPA, filed a NIS 1 billion suit today against members of the Goldberg family which controlled Slice and managed it, headed by Assaf Goldberg who is described as "the all-powerful CEO of Slice" and as the person "whose acts and omissions are a consistent thread in almost every failure discovered at Slice." According to the claim, Goldberg ignored or turned a blind eye to "all the warning lights that flashed bright red."
Alongside Asaf Goldberg, who holds 13% of Slice, the suit names his father Shimon Goldberg, who holds the permit to control Slice and who served as a director of the company with a 25% stake in it; and his brother Shai Goldberg, who also served as a director, and holds 13% of the company. Also being sued are the other directors of Slice, the CFO, the auditor, the company’s legal counsel, and its compliance officer.
The claim describes the Slice affair as "an unprecedented fraud in the Israeli capital market." It totals NIS 950 million, of which NIS 620 million represents money transferred by 7,500 Slice clients to alternative investment funds overseas that disappeared. Altogether NIS 850 million was transferred to these funds, but the claim sets off loans that some clients received against their investment. Sandrov says that he has so far located over NIS 280 million of this money, but that most of it is invested in high-risk non-marketable assets that it will be possible to realize only in several years’ time.
The claim also includes NIS 234 million for the return that the clients could have obtained had their money been invested in normal provident fund investment tracks; NIS 70 million for the "hole" created in Slice’s accounts; and NIS 20 million to cover expenses incurred by the administrator in recovering the money.
"Worst case of breach of savers’ trust"
According to the claim, filed by Adv. Barak Tal, Adv. Nir Rosner, and Adv. Maayan Malka of Arnon Tadmor-Levy, "The Slice affair is the biggest and worst case of breach of savers’ trust that the pension savings sector in Israel has ever seen. Thousands of savers lost their money amid financial fraud on an unimaginable scale. Many savers - some of them poor and some of them old people in their eighties and nineties - now find themselves without means, with their savings not within their control, and still with no clarity on how much of their savings, if any, will be recovered and will be in their possession, and when."
Sandrov, who was appointed administrator in December 2023, severely criticizes the former management. "It’s a matter of utter failure of the entire system, from the management, which behaved as though it was running a neighborhood grocery; to the board of directors, which didn’t check, didn’t examine, didn’t ask, and didn’t set out any policy or procedures, and even turned a blind eye to failures that were presented to it or that it should have known about; to the watchdogs who neglected their functions, such as the compliance and regulation officer, who allowed money to be transferred by Slice to the unknown funds, despite countless legal requirements that were simply not met; and the auditor, who audited financial statements that were completely false without carrying out the checks that he should have carried out and without receiving the required supporting documentation, thus allowing a smooth audit when hundreds of millions of shekels had disappeared."
The claim sets out the way in which "thousands of savers were tempted into transferring their money" to an IRA (Individual Retirement Account) when they did not meet the requirements for doing so, and when the funds did not abide by the legal restrictions. Savers’ money "was transferred to unknown foreign funds that were not checked or monitored, funds with no experience and no track record, with no clarity on who was behind them, or whether and how they could be contacted."
Sandrov points an accusing finger mainly at the former CEO, Assaf Goldberg, and determines "by any measure he failed in his job." According to the claim, Goldberg’s conduct "indicates a lack of any appropriate qualifications for the post of manager of a company such as Slice, and a lack of relevant knowledge and experience of provident funds."
The claim describes how people were persuaded to invest their money in overseas alternative funds. Potential customers in need of loans, some of them in financial difficulties and with low credit ratings, were persuaded to transfer their money to the funds in return for a loan of up to 30% of their pension savings.
The claim states that the Slice board "failed by every possible criterion in carrying out its task." Directors "continued to approve and sign financial statements lacking in any basis. In the face of ‘red flags’ that indicated that the statements were not drawn up on the basis of credible figures, no material weakness or significant deficiency was reported, and baseless declarations were made."
Sandrov points to the fact that even after the Capital Markets, Insurance and Savings Authority started to make enquiries at the company in November 2022, and even after it announced in February 2023 that it intended to carry out an audit of the funds, the managers did nothing. "The Authority’s approach amounted to a bright red searchlight flashing shining for miles, and ignoring it took determinedly closed eyes, which, as is now known, caused further damage to savers."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on December 17, 2025.
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