MASAK Seven-Business-Day Freeze: Istanbul Regional Court 2025/476

The proceeds of a Bitcoin sale, TRY 791,335.87, are transferred from an account on a crypto platform to the person's own bank account, but a few days later the money becomes unusable. The bank found the transactions suspicious and reported them to the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK), and the Ministry authority postponed the withdrawal repeatedly. When the account holder sued the bank, the first-instance court dismissed the action, saying "the bank merely followed instructions". The 13th Civil Chamber of the Istanbul Regional Court of Appeal did not find this reasoning sufficient.

By its decision of 20 March 2025, Docket No. E.2022/1614, Decision No. K.2025/476, the 13th Civil Chamber of the Istanbul Regional Court of Appeal accepted the plaintiff's appeal, set aside the dismissal by the Istanbul 5th Commercial Court of First Instance under Article 353/1-a-6 of the Code of Civil Procedure (HMK), and sent the case back to the first-instance court for re-examination. The decision was given as final under Article 362/1-g of the HMK, and unanimously.

₿ Money arriving at the bank from a Bitcoin sale

According to the claims described in the decision text, the plaintiff bought Bitcoin through a crypto platform with savings, for investment, and when the price rose sold it in stages and converted it into Turkish lira. The TRY balance on the platform was transferred to the plaintiff's current account at the defendant bank, which has an agreement with the platform.

On 3 September 2020, when the plaintiff wanted to carry out a transaction through internet banking with the TRY 791,335.87 in the account, they ran into a problem. Bank customer services told them that suspicious transactions had been detected in the account movements and that action had been taken under Article 19/A of Law No. 5549 on the Prevention of Laundering Proceeds of Crime.

The plaintiff filed the lawsuit on 14 February 2021. The claim has two parts: an action to prevent interference with the account (muarazanın men'i), and collection, as material loss, of the highest bank interest applicable to the money in the account from the date of the freeze to the date of the lawsuit. According to the plaintiff, the report was unjustified; even if it were justified, the seven-business-day period in the law was greatly exceeded.

The bank argued that it had made the report under Article 4 of Law No. 5549, that the transactions had been postponed on the instructions of the Presidency, and that under Article 10 of the same Law it had no legal liability.

🏛️ First-instance court: "a bank that follows instructions is not at fault"

The Istanbul 5th Commercial Court of First Instance dismissed the action by its decision of 12 May 2022, E.2021/269, K.2022/339. The findings in the case were summarised as follows:

• By approvals dated 4 September 2020, 21 September 2020, 15 October 2020, 2 November 2020, 6 November 2020, 23 November 2020, 21 December 2020, 29 January 2021 and 17 May 2021, the Ministry authority postponed withdrawal of the TRY 791,336.00 balance in the account for seven days each time.
• After 17 May 2021 no new postponement decision was given, and the bank lifted the freeze and refunded the money. After the lawsuit was filed, the plaintiff's counsel also stated that the principal had been paid and that the claims concerned interest.
• The expert report obtained by the court stated that, if it is accepted that the transactions were postponed on instruction, no fault can be attributed to the bank; and that, if the view is adopted that the freeze beyond the seven-day period was unjustified, the claim would be a total of TRY 849,434.02, being TRY 791,335.87 principal and TRY 58,098.15 accrued interest.

The court accepted that the freeze was applied within the framework of the Presidency's instructions and the bank's legal obligations, that the bank had made no transaction of its own accord, and that interest could not be claimed.

⚖️ Why the appeal court set the decision aside

The Chamber set aside the first-instance decision because of three separate deficiencies.

1. The basis of the report was not investigated. The bank made nine reports and nine postponement decisions were given. The court relied only on the existence of these decisions. Yet the documents on the reports made by the bank were not submitted to the case, and the court did not obtain these documents or all of the plaintiff's account movements. Whether the report rested on any material evidence, whether it met the conditions in Article 4 of the Regulation on the Postponement of Transactions, and whether it was justified were not examined by an expert panel.

2. The seven-business-day period was not discussed. From the petition onwards, at every stage, the plaintiff argued that the postponement period had been exceeded. The Chamber noted that whether the period was exceeded, if so by how many days, and whether there was a legal and justified basis for it, were never examined.

3. There are procedural deficiencies. For the action to prevent interference, the plaintiff paid the court fee on the amount in the account, but did not state the value of the claim for loss and paid no fee for that part. The court continued the proceedings without having this clarified under Article 31 of the HMK. In addition, since the freeze was lifted during the proceedings and the balance refunded, dismissing the whole action without assessing whether the action to prevent interference had become devoid of subject matter was also not considered correct.

📜 Law No. 5549: reporting, postponement, protection

The provisions assessed in the decision form three linked elements:

The bank's defence rests on Article 10. The Chamber's approach shows that this protection does not operate automatically: to benefit from it, the bank must have "fulfilled its obligation". According to the Chamber, to understand whether it did, the content of the report, the indications it was based on and the conditions required by the regulation must be examined. The existence of a postponement decision alone was not enough for the outcome.

The decision text also sets out the content of Article 4 of the regulation. Accordingly, a report requesting postponement is made, with reasons, where there is a document or serious indication supporting the suspicion. Indicators such as the transaction being unusual in nature, the checks showing that the person carrying out the transaction may be connected with an offence, or completion of the transaction creating a dangerous situation that would prevent seizure are sought. Under the regulation, the postponement period also cannot exceed seven business days from the date of the report.

The decision text also includes the provision in Article 7 of Decree-Law No. 670 that the seven-business-day period is applied as thirty business days during a state of emergency. The effect of this provision on the present case is among the matters to be assessed in the retrial.

🔍 Issues to be examined in the retrial

The Chamber listed the steps the first-instance court is to take:

1. The plaintiff will be made to state the value of the claim for loss under Article 31 of the HMK, and time will be given to complete the missing fee under Article 30 of the Fees Law (Harçlar Kanunu).
2. All documents on the report made by the bank and all of the plaintiff's account movements will be obtained.
3. A report will be obtained from an expert panel on whether the report rested on material evidence, whether it met the conditions in Article 4 of the regulation, and whether it was justified.
4. Whether the seven-business-day period was exceeded after the postponement decisions, by how many days, and the legal basis for this will be examined.
5. If the bank's act is accepted as wrongful, whether the plaintiff suffered loss and its amount will be determined.
6. Whether the claim to prevent interference has become devoid of subject matter will be assessed.

An important aspect of the decision is the arrangement of proof. Article 4/2 of Law No. 5549 provides that the fact that a suspicious transaction report has been made cannot be disclosed to anyone other than courts. The account holder therefore cannot find out the content of the report by their own means. By treating it as necessary for the court to obtain the documents, the Chamber pointed to a way of correcting this information imbalance within the proceedings. While the confidentiality of reports is preserved, their content is opened to review by the court and experts.

The article on a MASAK freeze on a crypto accountTR, which deals with the precautionary attachment dimension of MASAK freezes on crypto-asset accounts, and the article on a three-year freeze on a bank accountTR, which examines long-term account freezes from the standpoint of the right to property, show different sides of the same problem.

🧭 Limits of the decision

❓ Common questions

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.