A Turkish opposition lawmaker has alleged that a businessman paid a $600,000 bribe to get his company listed on the stock exchange after another legislator demanded the payment, in remarks published Sunday.
Mehmet Atmaca, a lawmaker from the opposition Felicity Party (SP), alleged that the businessman in Bursa, a manufacturing center in northwestern Turkey, initially faced a demand for $1.5 million and eventually paid $600,000 out of fear.
The businessman was seeking approval from the Capital Markets Board (SPK), Turkey’s securities regulator, to sell shares in his company to the public for the first time.
The lawmaker accused of demanding the payment was not named in the account published by the Serbestiyet news website.
Atmaca later clarified that the bribery allegation came from the businessman and that he had neither witnessed the payment nor obtained documentary proof.
The allegations come as the SPK faces scrutiny over an investment fund scandal that erupted in September, when funds could not meet investors’ requests to withdraw their money amid investigations into suspected market manipulation.
The regulator ordered the liquidation of 131 funds managed by seven companies, requiring their assets to be sold to repay investors.
Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek last week authorized prosecutors to investigate former SPK chairman İbrahim Ömer Gönül over alleged failures to carry out his duties in connection with the fund scandal.
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