Motorola's Turkish Telecom Feud Goes To The Court Of Public Opinion

from the odd-moves dept

Back in February we had a post about Motorola and Nokia's charges of racketeering filed against the family who runs a mobile phone firm in Turkey. The charges alleged that the firm, Telsim, convinced Motorola and Nokia to loan them nearly $3 billion dollars, which they then took for themselves, without any intention of paying them back. At the time, I wondered what would ever cause a company to give up that much money to someone - especially when they had a history of not paying back similar loans. The family in question refuses to recognize the jurisdiction of American courts and have refused to show up for any hearing on the matter. However, to fight this, they've decided they're better off focusing on the court of public opinion. They've taken out a series of newspaper ads criticizing Motorola's side of the story, and saying that Motorola misled share holders about the deal in the first place, and recorded the loans as revenue. It seems a bit odd to not show up in American court, but to then use American newspapers (and an American PR firm) to say that they're innocent.