Turkish regulator Capital Markets Board (SPK), which is similar to US SEC authority, announced that it has appointed two new independent board members to mobile phone operator Turkcell. SPK acknowledged that Turkcell has failed to hold mandatory board meetings due a to a long-running dispute between its shareholders and since the tenure of the current 4 members has already passed by May 2013, SPK had to appoint at least 2 board members to keep the board running.
Turkish regulator SPK started to show that it won’t let Turkcell to be carried away by long running disputes. The dispute between the three major shareholders, Turkey’s Cukurova, Russia’s Altimo Group and Nordic telecommunications giant TeliaSonera has been the subject for nearly 3 years now and it prevented the approval of accounts and distribution of dividends. But SPK made a very important effort to bring this dispute to an end by publishing a notification in October 2011 and regulating the corporate governance principles which mandated that at least two or one third of number of members in the board should be the independent board members in order to protect the minority shareholders’ rights.
In March 2013, after Turkcell again failed to hold mandatory board meetings and general shareholders meetings, SPK appointed 3 independent board members to Turkcell. But it also warned the operator and reminded that the remaining 4 board members’ tenure was about to come to an end and the shareholders should hold a general meeting and appoint 4 board members. Nevertheless, Turkcell shareholders chose to continue their endless dispute and general shareholders meeting could not be held.
Now SPK announced that it has appointed two new independent board members to mobile phone operator Turkcell in order to keep the board running. It also reminds that there are still 2 absent seats in 7 members Turkcell board and each of the 3 main shareholders should propose 2 candidates and SPK will chose 2 new board members out of those 6 candidates.
Kaynak : 