Gruzman Fled From a SLAPP Lawsuit.
Nemirovsky Continues to Threaten....
Motti Gruzman decided to withdraw from the SLAPP lawsuit against Oleg Ulyansky and the website of the Excelion Victims Board. He also paid court costs of 13,500 NIS. Nemirovsky remains alone in the battle.
On June 30, 2024, Gruzman & Nemirovsky filed a SLAPP suit – a so-called “defamation” lawsuit – case no. 67078-06-24 in the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court, against Oleg Ulyansky, who had worked for them and was unlawfully dismissed in March 2024. They sued Ulyansky for the astronomical amount of 2 million shekels (about 500,000 EUR) and demanded the shutdown of this website run by the Excelion Victims Board. They froze Ulyansky’s apartment with a lien and even asked the court for a travel ban to destroy Ulyansky’s international real estate business. However, the court rejected the last request.
They were so desperate to silence Ulyansky that they hired the law firm of Dr. Weinroth, one of the most famous and expensive firms in Israel, reportedly spending around 150,000 euros on the lawsuit – according to people familiar with Nemirovsky and Gruzman’s legal affairs.
But something went wrong.
First, they didn’t have enough money to pay Weinroth, who quickly withdrew from representing Gruzman and Nemirovsky in this case and others. And law firms are not known for tolerating unpaid fees.
“The legal fee owed to our office has not been paid for a long time, and remains unsettled despite repeated requests. Under these circumstances, our office has notified the plaintiffs that it cannot continue representation in a manner that would increase the unpaid legal fee debt. Furthermore, the plaintiffs’ conduct undermines the trust necessary in the attorney-client relationship.”
The plaintiffs failed to convince Judge Gad Mina to silence that website of Excelion Victims Board. The judge repeatedly asked them to point out even one false statement on the website – and they couldn’t. The judge asked Gruzman how the website differs from the article about Excelion published in TheMarker newspaper. Gruzman replied, brilliantly:
“I don’t only fundraise in Israel. TheMarker article is in Hebrew. I fundraise in Europe, and this website is in Europe. We have entities there… they say: ‘We’re ready to invest’ and the moment they see the website, they tell me: ‘Motti, listen, we get 100 proposals a week, we don’t want to deal with this.’”
(Quoted from the court transcript, December 3, 2024)
Naturally, the judge denied the request by Nemirovsky & Gruzman.
Ulyansky, who represented himself, persuaded the court to cancel the lien and release his apartment. The court also awarded him legal expenses. In his ruling to cancel the lien, Senior Registrar Michael Sheftel wrote:
“The plaintiffs [Nemirovsky and Grozman] have not met the initial threshold and did not fulfill the burden to convince me of the existence of a cause of action – not even prima facie… Not only did the plaintiffs fail to attach any evidence, even minimal, to support the alleged damages, but they also didn’t bother to explain in the claim itself how the damage amount was calculated.”
(Quoted from the court decision, February 18, 2025)
When Gruzman realized that the SLAPP lawsuit wouldn’t succeed, he withdrew from the case and paid a relatively modest 13,500 NIS in legal costs to Ulyansky.
Effectively, Nemirovsky is now left alone in his hopeless campaign of revenge and silencing, and continues wasting creditors’ money on a dead-end lawsuit. Nemirovsky did reduce the claim from 2 million to a more “modest” 560,000 shekels, but still uses it as a pressure tactic against Ulyansky.
To no avail. Because now Ulyansky is suing Nemirovsky for serious damages caused by the lien they placed on his apartment. But now Nemirovsky will have to pay alone — without Gruzman.
All this instead of returning money to creditors in the projects he controls: Green Wood, Sankt Martin, and Alva Park.
