Kahlon agrees plea bargain on securities offenses

An indictment was filed today against former Minister of Finance Moshe Kahlon in the Tel Aviv Economic Court, as part of a plea bargain agreement. Kahlon, who served as chairman of non-bank finance company UnetCredit in 2021-2022, will admit to reporting offenses under the Securities Law.

The question of disgrace is not part of the plea agreement and since this involves minor offenses, Kahlon would probably be able to return to political life. At the same time, indictments were filed against seven defendants and two companies, including controlling shareholders and other executives Tzachi Ezer, Shai Penso and Shlomo Isaac, The parties also agreed to limit tenure as an officer in a public or private company for 18 months, starting from the end of any sentence.

At the heart of the case that shook the capital market and the political system is Kahlon’s tenure as chairman of UnetCredit, after he left the government and the Knesset at the beginning of the decade.

In September 2024, the prosecution announced an indictment against Kahlon, subject to a hearing, for his role in preventing reporting and concealing information from the board of directors about irregularities at the company’s Nazareth branch. Kahlon, represented by attorney Nati Simhoni, served as chairman of the board of directors of publicly-traded Unet Credit, which dealt in providing non-bank credit, from June 2021 until his resignation in June 2022.

According to the indictment, before Kahlon took office as chairman of the company, the controlling shareholders knew about serious irregularities that occurred at the Nazareth branch regarding checks worth millions of shekels and mutual allegations of theft from the branch. Only in early January 2022 did compliance officer Yoav Sabar inform Kahlon about irregularities discovered at the branch amounting to NIS 10 million. Sabar later reported to Kahlon about the actions he had taken to mitigate the damage, and Kahlon clarified the magnitude of the risk in the branch’s conduct for the public company. In March 2022, the financial statements were published.

According to the indictment, Kahlon did not disclose to the board of directors the information he had about the missing funds in the Nazareth branch. Thus, the annual reports were published without Kahlon revealing the material details. At the end of May 2022, Sabar announced that there were shortfalls of NIS 22 million and the company reported suspected financial irregularities. In June 2022, Kahlon resigned. Kahlon is accused of failing to report irregularities discovered at the Nazareth branch in the company’s quarterly and annual financial statements.

Under the agreement, Kahlon will plead guilty to a reporting offense under the Securities Law.

UnetCredit collapsed in 2022 following the discovery of serious financial irregularities, leaving it with debts of some NIS 120 million. Kahlon was investigated for knowing for months about the disappearance of millions of shekels from the central branch of UnetCredit in Nazareth but ordered the company’s compliance officer not to report it, and even took part, along with other senior officials, in concealing the information from the board of directors. This was to avoid a provision in the financial statements for the missing funds, which could have led to a downgrade in UnetCredit’s credit rating. Kahlon was also suspected of causing the company’s financial statements to include misleading information.

According to the arrangement, Kahlon will plead guilty to a reporting offense under the Securities Law. The parties will jointly receive a sentence of suspended imprisonment, the length of which will be determined by the court, and a fine of NIS 180,000.

Moshe Kahlon and the other suspects in this case have not yet been convicted of any offense and must still benefit from the presumption of innocence.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on May 17, 2026.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2026.