Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Turkish Mobile Chief Says Won't Pay $4B

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 23:02:13 -0400

Turkish Mobile Chief Says Won't Pay $4B
By SUZAN FRASER
Associated Press Writer

ANKARA, Turkey (AP)--The head of a billionaire telecom Turkish family said
Wednesday he has no intention of complying with a court order to pay $4 billion
for defrauding Nokia and Motorola.
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.

AP-NY-08-13-03 1951EDT

Copyright 2003, The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP Online
news report may not be published, broadcast or redistributed without the prior
written authority of The Associated Press.

http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/ap/ap_story.html/Financial/AP.V2549.AP-Turkey-Telsim.html

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From: Rick Parrish <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 22:41:19 -0500

[email-masked] wrote:

>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.
>  
>
Seems like they could get the US judge to treat the situation like a 
Chapter 11. If Nextwave can do it with the FCC, then why not these guys? 
(or am I being to creative here?)
-rick