Turkey: Uzan Family Says Won’t Pay $4B

Instead, the companies will have to rely on arbitration to get their money back, Hakan Uzan said in an interview with the Associated Press.

The family will appeal U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff’s ruling, and also will not turn over shares of stock in the family’s business Telsim, Turkey’s second-biggest wireless company, as the court required, he said.

"The decision in New York is a decision by a biased judge who has neglected to look at the case," Uzan said.

Motorola Credit Corp., a division of Illinois-based Motorola Inc., and Nokia Corp. of Finland jointly sued the Uzans in 2001 alleging they borrowed $2.7 billion to build a next-generation wireless network _ with no intention of repaying the money.

Rakoff agreed and on July 31, ruling on a civil lawsuit, said the family was guilty of an "almost endless series of lies." He ordered the Uzans to pay nearly $4 billion to Motorola and to transfer a massive amount of Telsim stock to Nokia within one week _ or be ordered by the court to pay Nokia more than $853 million.

Rakoff also ordered five leading members of the Uzan family to be arrested if they set foot in the United States.

In the interview Wednesday, Uzan said his family was the victim of bad timing and political pressures.

He said the problems with Telsim, which has 6.7 million subscribers, stemmed from financial difficulties caused by the economic crisis which hit Turkey two years ago, but the family was now ready to draw up a new payment schedule.

Uzan said Telsim had been in arbitration talks with Nokia since 2001, and he urged Motorola to do the same. He also suggested Motorola had gone to a U.S. court against his family to "cover up" their failure to disclose to their shareholders the huge risk they had undertaken by making considerable loans to Telsim.

A lawyer representing Motorola said the company has no arbitration agreement with the Uzans, and that the U.S. court had every right to find the family responsible.

"We sued the Uzans in New York because the jurisdiction is proper there. They all own apartments, have driver licenses there and conduct business in New York," said Steven Davidson, a lawyer representing Motorola.

Uzan also suggested that some of the problems may be retaliation for the political activies of his brother, businessman-turned-politician Cem Uzan, who is considered to be a leading challenger to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Cem Uzan is also a defendant in the Motorola case.

Government agencies have been cracking down on the family, taking over two electricity companies for continuous breach of contracts as well as the family’s flagship bank, Imar, for alleged dangerous banking practices.

The Uzan family built its fortune from a small construction company in the 1950s. The family wealth grew to include construction and power companies as well as several TV channels, radio stations and newspapers.

The family is now facing possible seizure of assets frozen in the United States as well as assets in Turkey to compensate Imar account holders.

"If they wish, they can start liquidating, it won’t even cover their legal fees," Uzan said of possible moves to liquidate assets to compensate Nokia and Motorola.