Court of Cassation: Action Against Overseas Platform Agents

A person who wants to put money into an investment system said to be based abroad and promising high returns often never deals directly with that company. The money is sent to the bank accounts of local intermediaries who promote the system and carry out the "entry" transactions. When the promised profit does not arrive, the first route that comes to mind is to start enforcement proceedings against these intermediaries and, after an objection, to file an action to annul the objection. But in a case pursued against several people, the position of each defendant is not the same: can an action also be brought against an intermediary who never objected to the proceedings, and what do receipts without descriptions prove on their own?

In its decision of 31.03.2026, Docket No. 2025/4552 (E.), Decision No. 2026/1786 (K.), the 3rd Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation (Yargıtay) unanimously affirmed the Regional Court of Appeal's decision in an action to annul an objection, brought against intermediaries by a person who claimed to have been directed to an investment firm said to be based in Spain. The Regional Court of Appeal had dismissed the case on procedural grounds for lack of legal interest as to the defendant who had no valid objection to the proceedings, and on the merits as to the other defendants.

🌍 The Investment Promise and Six Transfers

According to the petition, the defendants persuaded the claimant to invest in a firm based in Spain that promised high returns. For this purpose the claimant sent a total of six transfers to accounts belonging to different people between 10.06.2017 and 03.08.2017. The amounts stated in the decision are as follows:

According to the claimant, on 24.06.2018 one of the defendants paid 17,845.90 TL into his account with the description "Debt refund", and the return of the remaining payments was requested by a notary warning dated 13.12.2018, but without result. Enforcement proceedings were then started against the defendants; the proceedings were stopped by an objection, and the claimant, arguing that the defendants were jointly and severally liable, sought annulment of the objection and enforcement denial compensation of at least twenty per cent.

🛡️ The Intermediaries' Defences

The defendants' lawyer raised many objections, both procedural and on the merits, against the case. The main defences recorded in the decision are as follows:

• That the case was commercial in nature and the mandatory mediation process had not been followed,
• That the claimant himself stated the money was transferred to the firm abroad, so the case could not be directed at the intermediaries,
• That the claimant also admitted acting as an intermediary and that entry into the system took place with his acceptance,
• That the arbitration condition in Article 18 of the Investment Management Agreement had not been met,
• That the case was not filed within the forfeiture period,
• That, since the transfer receipts carried no description, the payments were made in performance of a debt.

The claimant used this variety of defences separately at the appeal stage: according to the claimant's lawyer, the defendants first accepted in their responses that the payments were made for investment and then contradicted themselves by speaking of a debt relationship.

⚖️ First-Instance Court: The Burden of Proof Is on the Claimant

The first-instance court dismissed the case on the merits. Its reasoning stressed that a bank transfer is a means of paying a debt, that the burden of proving otherwise lies on the claimant, and that the receipts contained no statement that the money was sent as a loan or for investment. The court also made the following findings:

• The claimant's lawyer did not submit the USB flash drive cited as evidence within the peremptory time limit given.
• There is no written evidence or prima facie written evidence in the case; even if there had been, the witnesses were not named within the peremptory time limit.
• That one of the defendants sent money with the description "debt refund" does not mean that the claimant is a creditor of the defendants.
• According to the records of the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office, the fact that a trademark bearing the firm name is registered in the name of one of the defendants is not enough to prove that the transfers were sent for investment or as a loan.

🔄 Appeal: No Action Against a Defendant Who Did Not Object

On the claimant's appeal, the Regional Court of Appeal partly accepted the appeal on procedural grounds, set aside the first-instance decision and gave a new judgment. The reason for setting it aside was that there was no valid objection in the enforcement file as to one of the defendants. In the chamber's view, there is no legal interest in an action to annul an objection brought against a defendant who has not objected, and the case must be dismissed on procedural grounds as to that defendant.

As to the other two defendants, the case was again dismissed on the merits. The Regional Court of Appeal stated that the receipts carried no description, that there was no statement that the WhatsApp message records were accepted by the parties, that one of the defendants had sent a total of 21,245.90 TL with the description "debt refund", and that the trademark application was alleged to have been made by one of the defendants, but that it was not proven that the money was sent for this purpose under a contract.

🔍 The Court of Cassation's Reasons for Affirming

In the appeal petition, the claimant's lawyer argued that the proceedings had been stopped as to one defendant and the attachments lifted, that payment of the money to the defendants was proven by bank receipts, that the defendants acted together, that the trademark was registered in the defendants' names, and that the defendants' own Investment Management Agreement showed they worked for the firm abroad.

The 3rd Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation described the dispute as "an objection to enforcement proceedings started for the return of money sent by bank transfer, and the annulment of that objection". In its reasons for affirming, the chamber highlighted four points:

On these grounds the objections on appeal were rejected and the decision was unanimously affirmed under Article 370/1 of Code of Civil Procedure (HMK) No. 6100.

🧩 Why Does the Legal Interest Issue Matter?

The action to annul an objection is regulated in Article 67 of Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law No. 2004. According to the article, a "creditor whose enforcement request has been objected to" may, within one year of notification of the objection, sue for its annulment by proving the existence of the claim under the general rules. The subject of the case is the debtor's objection to the proceedings. If there is therefore no valid objection, there is no objection to annul.

In this case the enforcement proceedings were started against more than one person, but the position of the defendants who objected and those who did not differed. The Regional Court of Appeal accepted that there was no legal interest in hearing the case as to the defendant with no valid objection, and the Court of Cassation expressly mentioned this finding in its reasons for affirming. Article 114/1-h of Code of Civil Procedure No. 6100, which lists the conditions for bringing a case, requires the claimant to have a legal interest in bringing it; the lack of this condition leads to dismissal on procedural grounds without examining the merits.

The conclusion from the decision is that, in investment disputes with several defendants, the proceedings are assessed separately for each debtor. The objection raised in the appeal petition that "the proceedings were stopped and the attachments lifted" was not seen by the Court of Cassation as capable of changing the result.

📂 Evidence the Courts Gave No Weight To

In the case the claimant relied on several items of evidence to support the claim. The approach of the courts to this evidence can be summarised as follows:

Where transfers carry no description, the presumption of "payment of an existing debt", accepted in Court of Cassation practice, often comes up for money sent on an investment promise. A similar villa-project dispute is covered in the article on the transfer presumption in a fraud allegationTR, and a different case in which the receipt description was "debt" in the article on the investment defence and debt receiptTR. What distinguishes the present decision from these two is the procedural dismissal as to the defendant who did not object to the proceedings, and the fact that the money was distributed among several people who acted as intermediaries for a system abroad.

The points the decision does not address are also notable: the defendants' defences on mediation, the arbitration condition and the forfeiture period were not separately discussed in the Court of Cassation's decision, since the case was dismissed on the merits. The decision therefore contains no assessment of the validity of an arbitration condition in overseas investment agreements.

❓ Questions and Answers

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