Çiğdem Toker: Registry records

While CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu was showing the advice notes relating to the sending of millions of dollars to an Isle of Man-based company having a capital of one pound, he mentioned certain names. Sıtkı Ayan and Kasım Öztaş were two of the names Kılıçdaroğlu mentioned on the rostrum.

Thanks to this, attention has focused on the activities in Turkey of Ayan, the founder of Bellway Limited Company, and Bumerz Shipping has loomed large in the discussion. CHP Deputy Group Chair Özgür Özel indicates that the company’s name is formed from the names Burak Erdoğan, Mustafa Erdoğan and Ziya İlgen.

This is not the first time that the name of Burmerz has come to public attention in Turkey.

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 Another aspect of the affair came to prominence thanks to the June 2017 Malta documents on the site named The Black Sea bearing the signature of British journalist Craig Shaw, and Evrensel newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief Fatih Polat included this report which refers to the existence of a total of three companies established on the Isle of Man along with Bellway in an article of his. One of the companies included with reference to the report in this article which led to a penal investigation being launched against Fatih Polat was Bumerz Limited.

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 Let us now go back nine years and look at a report published in Vatan newspaper bearing Tebernüş Kireççi’s signature on 25 December 2008:

“MB Shipping and Transport Limited Company, in which Prime-Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s eldest son Ahmet Burak Erdoğan has a 50% share, has bought its first ship. Burak Erdoğan’s partner in MB is Mert Çetinkaya. Çetinkaya is the son of a family that has been in shipping for fifty years.

It is known that the Erdoğans’ eldest son Burak Erdoğan had been searching for a new business to set up after Prime-Minister Erdoğan and his family transferred their shares in Emniyet Gıda and İhsan Gıda, which act as the Ülker company’s regional dealership in Istanbul.

This search yielded a result in April 2006. Three members of the Erdoğan family bought the company named Turkuaz Shipping on 10 April 2006 and changed its name to Bumerz Shipping. Bumerz’s board of directors consists of the following individuals: Ahmet Burak Erdoğan, Mustafa Erdoğan (Tayyip Erdoğan’s brother) and Ziya İlgen (Tayyip Erdoğan’s sister Vesile İlgen’s husband). Ziya İlgen served on the board of directors of Emniyet Gıda and İhsan Gıda before the Erdoğan family’s share transfer.”

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Taking a retrospective look from today, it is apparent that there is a commercial and legal relationship between Bumerz Limited on the Isle of Man and Burmerz Shipping in Turkey. In fact, a glance at the Commercial Registry records makes this relationship all the more clearly visible.

Let me note one or two eye-catching resolutions in the registry records:

- 29 May 2015: Company management consisting of Kasım Öztaş, Murat Teke and Erol Koç convene and pass a retroactive resolution.

It is resolved for Bumerz Shipping to continue its operations as joint-stock company having a single shareholder as of 30 December 2014. The single shareholder, in turn, is specified as being Bahaddin Ayan.

Another interesting resolution was taken a short time after this date. Bumerz Shipping, changing its address on 31 March 2015, moves the company to an address in Sarıyer out of a perceived requirement. Then note that, on the same page of the commercial gazette of the same date, there are resolutions of two further different companies bearing Sıtkı Ayan’s signature on behalf of the board of directors. Changes of address of the companies Gent Elektrik and Som Overseas Petroleum Enerji. These companies also move to the same address in Sarıyer to which Bumerz Shipping moves.

From sources in the public domain, Bumerz Limited, Gent Elektrik and Som Petrol currently operate from the same address.

 http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/koseyazisi/877277/Sicil_kayitlari.html