COLEN-NAVON
Franchise Attorneys

A leading boutique firm, the law office of Colen-Navon is one of the first law firms in Israel to specialize in the unique and steadily growing field of franchise law. The firm oversees franchise transactions in Israel, for both local chains and international chains, as well as franchise transactions outside of Israel. For its international operations, the firm is assisted by counterparts in various countries.
Heading the firm is Adv. Guy Colen, [Sheffield university, UK, LLB, 1998] serves as Chairperson of the Israel Bar Association Franchise Committee, and specializes in the business – commercial areas; and Adv. Rafael Navon, [Tel Aviv university, Israel, LLB, 1997] who is member of the Israel Bar Association Franchises Committee, and who specializes in litigation – overseeing disputes in all courts as well as mediation and arbitration. The firm employs an experience team of lawyers.

The firm offers its clients – chains and Franchisees alike –professional and efficient assistance while applying the experience it gained over the past two decades, displaying creativity, out-of-the-box thinking, sensitivity and understanding of the tremendous concerns and risks involved in franchise transactions for both parties – the franchisee – which invests its capital and efforts in acquiring the franchise, and the chain, which must make the right selection without risk its brand and reputation.

The law office provides support to its clients in all facets of franchise, retail and commercial law; first and foremost – in franchise agreements. These extremely complex contractual arrangements are essentially a ‘wedding’ with long-term implications for the parties. The firm's extensive experience in the franchising sector allows it to draft franchise agreements that will optimally protect the chain’s assets that it painstakingly accumulated, and subsequently, allow the chain to effectively enforce compliance with the principle of chain uniformity. The wording of the franchise agreements requires an in-depth understanding of the risks facing the franchising chain. Any loophole in the protection may prove to be stumbling blocks in the chain’s future development, and under extreme circumstances, might undermine its stability. On the other hand, the lawyers’ intimate familiarity with the field allows them to successfully represent the franchisees as well, while protecting their vital interests, particularly when discussing contracts that by nature are not balanced and tend to favor the chain. Alongside the franchise agreements, the law office of Colen-Navon offers legal support for all legal needs required by entrepreneurs in the franchising /retail sector, including drafting of founders / partnership agreements between the founders of the chains or between the founders of the groups of franchisees, and subsequently, the actual establishment in the authorities of the companies / partnerships’, mergers and acquisitions of franchise chains; acquisition of active franchises / branches by franchisees; representative of the lessees / lessors in rental agreements (extensive experience in supervising rental agreements in shopping centers, power centers, institutions [hospital, universities, educational institutions, etc., neighborhood centers and street shops); registration of trademarks and protection of intellectual property; and any issue pertaining to the aforementioned – supervising legal disputes (commercial litigation). All of these services are provided by experienced attorneys who have undergone many years of training in the franchise sector.

The team is skilled at balancing the need to protect its clients through various legal protections, and the importance of providing a solution to problems that arise during the transaction and negotiations in an effective, professional manner that will result in implementation of the transaction.

In these types of transactions, which are not subject to specific legislation that arranges the balance of powers between the parties to the transaction, the risks are many. The presence and professional as well as personal support of the law office team is significant both in the short-term – during negotiations and the signing of the franchise agreements, and in the long-term – regarding the impact of the emerging relationship between the franchisee and the chain.

As specified, when a franchise transaction or any other commercial transaction encounters a crisis, the team provides assistance in the form of representing our clients in various courts for issues pertaining to disputes that arose between the parties during and after the transaction, and to convene arbitration meetings between the parties to the dispute in order to facilitate a resolution, without having to turn to the courts.

In order to provide clients with the finest legal service possible, the team remains updated on the latest rulings in this specialized field of franchising, and obtains the most comprehensive, specialized and accurate information to support these types of transactions. The team also learns from our extensive experience in managing hundreds of franchise transactions and disputes between chains and Franchisors every year.

Colen-Navon clientele includes some of the largest chains in Israel and overseas, as well as many franchisees, some of which acquired through our office dozens of franchises. The office supports chains and Franchisors in an array of business sectors and sub-sectors, with each sector and sub-sector customized for the client. In all fields, the office remains updated, offering a solution to modern needs. For example, adaptations for businesses for which some of their operations are currently being conducted online, adjustments to various operations being performed outside the branch, adaptations to the relevant business environment and its specific characteristics – from commercial centers, to gas stations to street shops; from stores that are several hundred meters large to booths and carts, etc.

The areas of business handled by the office include, inter alia, restaurants (fine dining, casual dining, fast food), cafes (full service, partial service, self-service), bars and night life, juice and shake stores / booths, ice cream parlors, yogurt parlors, bakers, salad bars, delicatessens, alcoholic beverages, kiosks, supermarkets and grocery stores, pharms (consumer goods, esthetics, grooming and beauty), makeup and nail polish, discount stores, kitchen houseware, fashion and shoes, cooking and baking, cleaning materials, real estate brokerage, landscaping equipment, pets, cellular phones, rehab from smoking and other addictions, mortgage consulting, gemology, as well as various other types of businesses.