Israel Hayom asks court to permit review of Taboola legal papers

The largest newspaper in Israel, Israel Hayom, has asked the Tel Aviv District Court to permit it to review documents submitted in the framework of an ongoing legal proceeding between the Taboola media marketing company and Walla. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Taboola which had tried to sue Walla for canceling an earlier agreement with the company. Taboola advertises through content sites using links such as “across the web” and “recommended for you” to attract Internet surfers. Israel Hayom, which is pursuing its own lawsuit against Taboola, asked the court to allow it to see all of the relevant documents from the proceeding with Walla due to the similarity to its own legal battle against Taboola. In a filing to the District Court, Israel Hayom, owned by Miriam Adelson, dismissed Taboola’s claims for confidentiality, arguing that publication of the documents from the Walla case does not constitute the revelation of commercial secrets. In the filing, Israel Hayom mentioned the recent NIS 5 million fine Taboola had to pay Israel’s Competition Authority for the way it managed a planned merger with competitor Outbrain last year. The deal was eventually called off.The authority said that it had spoken with Israeli media companies about the planned merger and that Ynet, a popular news site, had initially objected to the deal. It later sent a letter to the authority expressing its support for the Taboola-Outbrain merger, which the authority discovered had been initiated by Taboola. This led to an investigation against Ynet and Taboola. In January, Taboola went public on Wall Street at $2.6 billion valuation.

Taboola did not respond to an inquiry from The Jerusalem Post whether it had updated the NYSE about the NIS 5 million fine it had to pay the Competition Authority in Israel due to its conduct during the planned merger with Outbrain.
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