Eliazarov Creditors List Inaccurate

A list of companies that Eliazarov Rueven & Sons owes them money has been circulating in the Israeli Diamond Exchange in the past couple of days. However, while the list is, in several cases, accurate to the cent, in several other cases the list is grossly inaccurate and possibly very harmful to smaller companies.

Fears of a domino effect in the IDE have given great credence to the list. The IDE’s legal department said it did not create the list and does not know who did. It is believed that possibly one of the creditors created and circulated it.

All through the day diamond dealers and brokers could be seen holding the list, giving friends copies of it and reading it with great interest.

But one diamond company already put up notices in the exchange that they are not owed the large sum noted in the list but only a very small fraction of it. Not only an actual debt could bring down a company, but even just a rumor that a company is owed a sum that might devastate it will cause sellers to set limited credit, if not avoid selling them goods all together.

In other words, a rumor alone can severely harm a small or even a medium-size company.

According to the list, about 120 companies are owed a total of a little over $16 million. A sample check by IDEX Online found that in some cases the listed amount is accurate, in some cases wrong and in some the companies said they are not owed money at all.

On Sunday Eliazarov notified the Exchange that it cannot meet its financial obligations. Two days later a second company, Dostov Diamonds, followed suit.

Many IDE members have expressed a great deal of anger at the way insolvencies are handled by the Exchange, criticizing the fact they are allowed to operate after paying creditors only a small portion of what was owed instead of barring them from trading altogether. One called it an outrage, another said stricter laws need to be adopted while yet another said that the writing was on the wall.