If a special tender offer is accepted by the procedure described above, then shareholders who did not respond to or who objected the offer may accept the offer within four days of the last day set for the acceptance of the offer.
An office holder in a company which is the target of a special tender offer who, in his or her capacity as an office holder, performs an act or omits to act for in order to cause the failure of an existing or foreseeable special tender offer, or to impair the likelihood of its acceptance, is liable to the offeror and offerees for damages, unless such office holder acted in good faith and had reasonable grounds to believe that such act or omission was beneficial to the company. As a safe harbor, office holders of the target company may negotiate with a potential purchaser in order to improve the terms of a special tender offer, or negotiate with third parties in order to obtain a competing offer.
In the event that a special tender offer is accepted, the purchaser, any person or entity controlling or controlled by the purchaser, or under common control with the purchaser, may not make a subsequent tender offer for the purchase of shares of the target company, and may not enter into a merger with the target company, for a period of one year from the date of the offer, unless the purchaser or such person or entity undertakes to effect such an offer or merger as a special tender offer in compliance with the Companies Law requirements.
Merger
The Companies Law permits merger transactions if approved by each party’s board of directors and, unless certain conditions described under the Companies Law are met, by each party’s shareholders by a majority vote as described below.
For purposes of the shareholder vote, unless a court rules otherwise, the merger will not be deemed approved if a majority of the shares voted at the shareholders meeting held by shareholders who are not the other party to the merger, or held by any person who holds 25% or more of the outstanding shares or the right to appoint 25% or more of the directors of the other party to the merger (including relatives or entities in control of the above), vote against the merger. If the transaction would have been approved but for the separate approval of each class or the exclusion of the votes of certain shareholders as provided above, a court may still approve the merger upon the request of holders of at least 25% of the voting rights of a company, if the court holds that the merger is fair and reasonable, taking into account the relative value of the merger parties and the consideration offered to the shareholders. If the non-surviving entity of the merger has more than one class of shares, the merger must be approved by each class of shareholders. If a merger is with a company’s controlling shareholder, or if a controlling shareholder has a personal interest in the merger, then the merger will be subject to the special majority approval required for an extraordinary transaction with a controlling shareholder (see: Approval of Related Party Transactions under Israeli Law - Declaration of Personal Interest of Controlling Shareholders and Approval of Certain Transactions). In the context of mergers (as well as other related party transactions), a “controlling shareholder” under Israeli law is deemed to include any shareholder holding 25% or more of the voting rights in the company if no other shareholder owns more than 50% of the voting rights in the company, and two or more shareholders with a personal interest in the approval of the same transaction are deemed to be one shareholder for such purpose.
The Companies Law requires the board of directors of a merging company to discuss and determine whether, in its view, there exists a reasonable concern that as a result of the proposed merger, the surviving company will not be able to satisfy its obligations towards its creditors, and if not, the board of directors may not approve the merger. The Companies Law requires each merging company to inform its secured creditors of the proposed merger plan. Upon the request of a creditor of either party to the proposed merger, the court may delay or prevent the merger if it concludes that there exists a reasonable concern that, as a result of the merger, the surviving company will be unable to satisfy the obligations of any of the parties to the merger, and may further give instructions to secure the rights of creditors.
A merger may not be completed unless at least 50 days have passed from the date that a proposal for approval of the merger is filed with the Israeli Registrar of Companies, and 30 days have passed from the date the merger was approved by the shareholders of each merging company.
Antitakeover Measures
The Companies Law allows us to create and issue shares having rights different from those attached to our ordinary shares, including shares providing certain preferred rights, distributions or other matters, and shares having preemptive rights. As of the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we do not have any authorized or issued classes of shares other than our ordinary shares. In the future, if we do create and issue a class of shares other than ordinary shares, such class of shares, depending on the specific rights that may be attached to them, may delay or prevent a takeover or otherwise prevent our shareholders from realizing a potential premium over the market