Court Rejects Subpoena Request from Turkey Seeking Records on Gülen Movement Member, Allegedly for Turkish Financial Crime Prosecution
A short excerpt from Friday’s long decision by Judge John Cronan (S.D.N.Y.) in In re Application of the Republic of Türkiye:
Cevdet Turkyolu, a member of the faith-based Gülen movement, is one of several targets of a Turkish money-laundering investigation and insider-trading prosecution. Pursuant to an application under 28 U.S.C. § 1782 that the Court approved late last year, the Republic of Türkiye served subpoenas on two American banks seeking financial records and other documents pertaining to Turkyolu and four others that Türkiye claims will advance those criminal matters. The banks later produced a number of records, which Türkiye then provided in support of another (currently pending) discovery application under Section 1782.
Turkyolu now moves to quash both subpoenas and to vacate the Court’s prior Order granting Türkiye’s application. According to Turkyolu, Türkiye’s application does not represent a bona fide attempt to seek evidence relevant to the criminal matters involving him, but is instead part of a years-long campaign of harassment and retaliation against the Turkish government’s political enemies and the Gülen movement in particular. For that reason, Turkyolu says, Türkiye’s application cannot satisfy Section 1782’s requirement that the discovery sought be “for use” in a foreign proceeding. And even setting that issue aside, Turkyolu maintains that Türkiye’s application is unduly intrusive and made in bad faith, justifying denial of the application on discretionary grounds. Turkyolu also contends that Türkiye did not serve the subpoenas in compliance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45, presenting an independent basis to quash.
For the following reasons, the Court agrees that Türkiye failed to comply with Rule 45 in serving the subpoenas and that the materials submitted by Türkiye in support of its application—a three-page declaration and a copy of a 2017 insider-trading indictment—do not adequately support its request for discovery in light of Turkyolu’s colorable allegations of
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