Demirören Media Group sues journalists over reports on 'unpaid loans' taken from state bank

Demirören Holding Chair Yıldırım Demirören

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The Demirören Media Group has filed lawsuits against journalists who reported on the loans it took from the state-owned Ziraat Bank to finance its purchases in sectors such as media, games of chance and energy.

The media group belonging to the Demirören Holding filed a lawsuit with the Bakırköy Penal Court of First Instance concerning the news report titled, "The luckiest golf player... Ziraat Bank leased the land it took from Demirören in return for a loan to Demirören again."

According to the report by journalist Hazal Ocak published in the daily Cumhuriyet on October 28, the bank took over a land mortgaged by the holding after it failed to pay a loan of 300 million dollars and 1.12 billion lira. The bank later leased the land in Göktürk, İstanbul, to its former owner for five years for 15 million lira.

Also, a short time after the holding mortgaged the land (September 4, 2018), it was zoned for development by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, which multiplied the land's value. A total of 206 housing units with an average size of 200 square meters could be built on the land, said the Cumhuriyet report.

The Demirören Media claimed that the news article included "derogatory statements," exceeded the limits and purposes of news reporting, and damaged its commercial reputation.

It demanded a symbolic compensation of 3 kuruş, or 0.3 lira from Alev Coşkun, the rights holder of the Cumhuriyet Foundation.

The company also filed complaints against two other outlets, Oda TV (Soner Yalçın) and Medya Radar (Denizhan Erkoç), which quoted Cumhuriyet's report. It demanded the same amount of compensation from them as well.

In its petition, the company emphasized its "domestic and national" capital and listed the investments it has made while not giving information about how much of a loan it took from Ziraat Bank and how much of the loan was repaid.

The second lawsuit

About two weeks after the report subject to litigation, Hazal Ocak made another report about the Demirören Holding. The article that made the headline of the newspaper on November 14 was titled, "Demirören documents from Court of Accounts."

The Court of Accounts' 2020 draft audit report on Ziraat Bank included the golf courses that were leased back to the Demirören Holding and a section titled "Failure to Ensure the Repayment of the Loans Extended to a Customer Company of the İstanbul Corporate Branch," according to the Cumhuriyet report.

One day after this news report was published, the editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet, Aykut Küçükkaya, wrote a column article about Demirören's lawsuit against the newspaper.

"Take out a loan of 1 billion dollars from a state-owned bank and don't pay it back... Rent the land you mortgaged from the bank and pay 250 thousand lira per month!" he wrote.

The "crime" of disclosing Court of Accounts reports

The Demirören Media filed another case against Alev Coşkun and Hazal Ocak for these news and column articles. It again alleged that the limits and purposes of reporting had been exceeded. Different from the first lawsuit, it also claimed that its commercial secrets were distorted.

Citing other companies as an example, Demirören's lawyers stated, "It is perfectly normal for the client company to have a credit relationship with financial organizations."

They also claimed that disclosing information in the Court of Accounts reports to the public was illegal as those reports are only submitted to the parliament.

Demirören's attorneys again demanded a 3 kuruş compensation. Accepting their application, the Bakırköy 7th Penal Court of First Instance ruled that the two applications should be merged.

Ocak and the other journalists are expected to appear before the court in the coming days.

"The truth can't be covered up"

Speaking about the lawsuits, Ocak said she had been following the issue for a long time and added, "The truth can't be covered up."

"I first brought up the controversial loan relationship between Ziraat Bank and Demirören Holding and the mortgage of the golf courses used by the residents in return for loans in 2018. I've been following the process since then.

"I wrote about how sports fields used by the residents were zoned for development by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization and how the zoning was canceled in accordance with court rulings.

"I revealed the loan was not paid back and the mortgaged golf courses were handed over to Ziraat Bank in return. I wrote these lands were leased to Demirören at the end of the process.

"Because I wrote the truth, the Demirören Holding filed a 3 kuruş lawsuit against me. However, the whole process was reflected in the audit report of the Presidency of the Court of Accounts. So, the truth can't be covered up."

(HA/VK)