Bank Account Freeze and Seizure: Ankara Regional Court 2026/431

The sum of TRY 81,118.25 arrives from abroad in the current account of an account holder who trades mobile phones, but the money can never be used. The bank places the account under review under Article 19/A of Law No. 5549 on the Prevention of Laundering Proceeds of Crime, and the account holder, saying "under the international chargeback rules this money should have been refunded to me", applies first to the bank, then to the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK), and finally to the court. Months after the lawsuit is filed, a financial analysis report from the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) and a seizure order of the criminal judgeship of peace enter the case. The central question of the dispute becomes this: on the day the freeze was imposed there was no investigation yet; does a seizure order that comes later justify the bank's action?

By its decision of 9 April 2026, Docket No. E.2023/1160, Decision No. K.2026/431, the 21st Civil Chamber of the Ankara Regional Court of Appeal dismissed on the merits, under Article 353/1-b.1 of the Code of Civil Procedure (HMK), the appeal of the plaintiff's counsel against the decision of the Ankara 10th Commercial Court of First Instance dismissing the action. The decision was unanimous and the route of appeal on points of law remains open.

📱 Phone trading and money arriving from abroad

According to the petition described in the decision, the plaintiff carried out transactions totalling TRY 81,118.25 through the bank account and, claiming that the service purchased was not delivered, asked for the payment to be refunded. According to the plaintiff, this amount, which should be refunded under the contract between the parties and the international chargeback (reversal of payment) rules, arrived in their account from abroad, but the bank froze the money, citing different grounds.

The plaintiff states that they trade mobile phones, could not use the frozen amount as capital in their business and therefore suffered loss. The claim has three items:

• Lifting of the freeze on the account,
• Payment of the frozen TRY 81,118.25,
• Collection of a total of TRY 82,000.00, including the TRY 881.75 reliance loss, with the highest deposit interest applied to the Turkish lira from the date the loss arose.

The bank, for its part, argued that it had made a report to the relevant institutions under Article 4 of Law No. 5549, that it had performed the duty the law places on it, that the freeze was not arbitrary, and that the reliance loss claim had no basis.

🗓️ The order of dates

Because the plaintiff's appeal objections centre on timing, it is useful to see the dates in the case together. The sequence, as taken from the decision text, is as follows:

1. 17 July 2020: The bank asked for an invoice or document to be provided if the sums were payment for a sale.
2. 27 July 2020: By notice through a notary, the plaintiff asked for the transaction to be concluded within seven days under the chargeback rules and for the freeze to be lifted.
3. 11 September 2020: Following a complaint to the BDDK, the bank stated that the account had been placed under review within the scope of Article 19/A and that the review was continuing.
4. 24 November 2020: The lawsuit was filed before the Ankara 10th Consumer Court. Following a ruling of lack of jurisdiction, the case was sent to a commercial court of first instance.
5. 8 April 2021: MASAK concluded that the transactions in the account might be related to illegal betting and sent its financial analysis report to the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office.
6. 12 April 2021: The Ankara 8th Criminal Judgeship of Peace ordered the account to be seized under CMK 128 and the final paragraph of Article 5 of Law No. 7258.
7. 28 March 2023: The first-instance court dismissed the action.
8. 9 April 2026: The regional court of appeal dismissed the appeal on the merits.

🏛️ The first-instance decision and the appeal objections

The first-instance court accepted that the account had been seized by a judge's order, that the bank had performed its statutory duty, and that the conditions for a refund and for compensation were not met. The banking expert report obtained in the proceedings left the assessment of whether the freeze was lawful to the court.

The appeal objections of the plaintiff's counsel centred mainly on the following points:

⚖️ The Chamber's reasoning

The Chamber first set out the framework of the dispute: there is no disagreement that the plaintiff had an account and that TRY 81,118.25 was frozen. The debate concerns whether the freeze was wrongful, if so whether the plaintiff had any reliance loss, and whether the money in the account can be demanded from the bank.

According to the Chamber, the freeze was imposed as part of the reporting of suspicious transactions under Article 19/A. When the financial analysis report prepared on the basis of that report was sent to the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, a criminal investigation began, and at the prosecutor's request the account was seized. The decisive sentence of the decision is this: in view of the criminal investigation carried out at the stage reached, the MASAK financial analysis report and the criminal judgeship's decision, the justification of the freeze on the date it was imposed has become clear, and the freeze is the fulfilment of the bank's legal obligation under Article 19/A.

The Chamber therefore found no error in the first-instance decision, which accepted that no arbitrary freeze had been placed on the account and that the conditions for the plaintiff to claim a receivable or compensation from the bank were not met. The plaintiff was ordered to pay the balance of TRY 552.10 of the TRY 732.00 appeal decision fee, after deducting the TRY 179.90 already paid in advance.

In its reasoning the Chamber did not separately discuss the objections that the seven-day period had been exceeded and that a preliminary issue should have been recognised; it read the later criminal procedure steps as confirming the suspicion that existed on the date of the freeze.

📚 Provisions the decision relied on

The Chamber looked at the last link of a chain made up of the report, the MASAK analysis and the seizure by a judge's order, and from there established that the transaction at the first link was justified.

🧩 How it differs from similar MASAK decisions

In the decision of the Istanbul Regional Court of Appeal 13th Civil Chamber covered in our earlier article on seven business days in a MASAK freeze, the Chamber set aside a dismissal that had been given without obtaining the documents on the report and without examining whether the seven-business-day period had been exceeded. In that case the money was later refunded, the dispute had turned into interest lost during the freeze, and there was no seizure order on the account.

The case in the Ankara Regional Court of Appeal 21st Civil Chamber decision, by contrast, has a different evidential picture:

• MASAK's financial analysis report is in the case and contains the view that the transactions might be related to illegal betting.
• The account has been seized by a judge's order; the money is still under a criminal procedure measure.
• The claim is aimed at collecting the money itself and the reliance loss rather than interest.

As to the chargeback claim, it also differs from the case in the article on bank liability when a chargeback is refusedTR: there, the discussion was whether the dispute process should be run for the cardholder for goods that were not delivered; here, the money said to have arrived by chargeback was itself the subject of a suspicious transaction review.

🆕 The suspension power introduced by CMK 128/A

The freeze in this case rests on Article 19/A of Law No. 5549. Article 128/A, added to the CMK by Law No. 7571 of 24 December 2025, introduced a separate mechanism. Under this provision, where there is reasonable suspicion that the offences of qualified theft under Article 142/2-e of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), qualified fraud under Article 158/1-f and l, and misuse of bank or credit cards under Article 245 have been committed, a bank, payment service provider or crypto-asset service provider may suspend the account used in the offence for up to forty-eight hours.

The suspension is notified to the account holder; the account holder may apply to the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office to have it lifted, and the prosecutor decides within twenty-four hours. Natural and legal persons who give a suspension decision are not held legally liable (Article 128/A-6). Illegal betting offences are not among the offences listed in this article; for such suspicions, the reporting and postponement regime in Law No. 5549 and CMK 128 retain their importance.

❓ Questions and answers

For detailed information and legal support, you can contact Savun Law & Consultancy. Contact details are on the contact page, and similar decisions are in the Precedent DecisionsTR archive.