The Security Interests Law, 1967, created a revolutionary change in Israel's law of security interests inasmuch as it replaced the previous obsolete regime with a modern one. Notwithstanding, it refrained from adopting a clear position on the question of whether a non-corporate debtor may create a security interest over his assets by means of a floating charge. Such a charge, which according to Israeli law may be given by companies and cooperative societies, applies to both the current property of the debtor and any property which he may acquire in the future. The uniqueness of the floating charge, however, is not merely insofar as it extends to the future property of the debtor. Unless otherwise provided for, the floating charge allows the debtor to continue to execute transactions with his assets, such as their sale or mortgage, whereby the grantee of the rights by virtue of such transactions is not subject to the floating charge.

Compelling litigants to undergo medical examinations or tests raises a very clear problem of conflicting values. On the one hand, compelling any person to undergo a physical examination or test against his will is a clear impingement on his rights of liberty, privacy and bodily integrity. On the other hand, there are situations in which without such examinations or tests of a civil litigant the right of his adversary to fair and properly conducted litigation would be frustrated.

In this article, we will discuss how four different legal systems have attempted to balance these conflicting rights in their development of rules concerning such medical examinations. We will discuss rather fully three systems that are viewed as following common law procedure – namely, those of England, the United States and Israel – and compare them with that of Italy, as an example of the Romanist civil law countries.

I am very happy and honoured by my friend Prof. Stephen Goldstein's invitation to give my own modest contribution to the vigorous cultural life of this University, and in particular to this seminar, dedicated this year to the in-depth study of that most important subject, “res judicata”.

A final judgment represents the coat of arms of judicial activity, that which clearly separates and distinguishes this function distinctly from other functions of the State, i.e., legislative and administrative. In my view, the concept of a final judgment in a legal system, at a particular moment in history, is of unique interest in understanding the structure of that system's legal proceedings, its conception of adjudication and the ideology which inspires it.

The subject thus becomes central in the science of legal proceedings; the temptation for me to deal with it at length is very strong. I realize, though, that the usefulness of a survey of a foreign system depends on simplifying and limiting the description. That is why I have singled out one aspect of res judicata, i.e., the finality as part of a judgment, and I have chosen to deal only with recent developments in the Italian doctrine of party limits.

Israel's Restrictive Trade Practices Law, 1959, after a period of relative quiescence, appears to have become the subject of significant enforcement efforts. A major event reflecting this development was the filing of criminal charges against the country's four leading banks (and a top executive of each) in mid-1984 for illegally combining to fix interest rates paid on negotiable certificates of deposit. The prosecution was eventually resolved early in 1986 by a plea bargain which included another major event – the first negotiation of remedial rules of conduct to prevent future violations (hereinafter the “Bank Rules” or “Rules”), which were hailed by the chief enforcement official, the Controller of Restrictive Practices, as adding an efficient and highly important tool to enforcement of the Law.

The Bank Rules are similar to the consent decrees familiar to United States antitrust law. Indeed, the parties and the Chairman of the Restrictive Trade Practices Board, retired Supreme Court Justice D. Bechor, explicitly recognized and discussed the relevance of United States precedents in the proceedings which produced the Bank Rules. Just as the bank case has heightened awareness of the Law, so adoption of the Rules is probably a harbinger of remedies to come. The Bank Rules are thus of considerable practical relevance to counsel concerned with commercial contracts and practices as well as of general interest to those following the international diffusion of antitrust ideas.