Judge Awards Motorola $4 Billion In Turkish Telecom Case

from the will-they-ever-see-a-penny? dept

We've followed the Motorola/Telsim case here before. Motorola and Nokia apparently loaned a Turkish telecom firm $3 billion despite the fact that the family running the firm had a history of taking similar loans, and not paying it back. When it was discovered that the money was used on personal things, like real estate (and wasn't being paid back at all), Motorola and Nokia sued. Telsim and the Uzan family that runs it, declared that they didn't think US courts had any jurisdiction over their case, and instead hired an American PR firm to take their case to the American public in a series of newspaper ads. It appears that the American judge had different feelings on the matter, and has declared that, following an "almost endless series of lies, threats and chicanery" from the family, he's awarding Motorola $4.2 billion, which they're unlikely to see. He also ordered that Nokia gets control of a large chunk of Telsim stock. Meanwhile, the Uzan family says they still don't believe in the US courts (though, they're going to appeal in the US courts) and are asking that the companies meet them in friendly Switzerland for arbitration. The implications of the case may become a bigger deal, though, as one of the Uzan family members is becoming increasingly vocal in politics, and could become prime minister of Turkey. At the same time, the judge has stated if he (or any others among the defendants) step foot in the US (where they own quite a bit of property), they're to be arrested. Of course, I'm still wondering what makes a company simply loan someone $3 billion without doing the most basic due diligence to discover that they have a history of not paying back such loans?

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