The Office of the Attorney General believes that Israeli law should be applied to the digital commerce giant Amazon - including the Consumer Protection Law.
This is according to the position of the ombudsman, which has been filed in recent days in the Central District Court regarding a class action lawsuit against Amazon, which deals with claims by consumers to charge an illegal conversion rate from dollars to shekels when purchasing products on the site.
According to the plaintiffs, the conversion rate at which the defendant owed was about 6% higher than the representative rate - contrary to the provisions of the Consumer Protection Law, and even without this matter being mentioned in the terms of the transaction.
Thus, for example, on September 20, 2019, the representative dollar exchange rate was NIS 3,513, while the gap between it and the Amazon exchange rate was 5.92%, while the gap above the selling rate (which was NIS 3.5451) was 4.96%.
In its defense, Amazon argued, among other things, that "the terms of use included a choice of law stipulation that the law that would apply to the relationship between it and its customers is the law of the State of Washington in the United States, as required by the terms of use of the Amazon service."
On the other hand, the spokesperson's position - submitted by attorneys Keren Avisror and Yael Keltnik of the Central District Attorney's Office (civil) - is that "a wealthy global company, which conducts a considerable amount of business in Israel and directs its activities to Israeli clients, According to the laws of the state, in our case Israeli law, and not according to the law of the state of Washington in the United States, "as required by Amazon."
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