"The appellants damaged their customers; they damaged the public interest; they damaged the foundation of the capital market; and they damaged the public's trust in this market," wrote Justices Aharon Barak, Gavriel Bach, and Yitzhak Zamir in their verdict. "It is necessary to deter others from similar acts."

Shmuel Vaknin, Nissim Avioz, and Dov Landau owned an investment consulting firm. In 1988, they persuaded two customers to buy stock in the Agriculture Bank by falsely assuring them it was a safe and profitable investment. To prove the investment was worthwhile, they told the customers that they themselves held large quantities of this stock, and were not planning to sell. However, they were actually planning to dump their shares.