Aşçıoğlu sues partners in joint project over Ali Sami Yen land

İsmail Aktaş ISTANBUL / Hürriyet

The home battleground of Galatasaray football club for decades, Ali Sami Yen Stadium, was demolished last year for a residential and office block project. The project has become a cause for dispute between parties. DAILY NEWS photo, Hasan ALTINIŞIK

The Torunlar GYO, Aşçıoğlu and Kapıcıoğlu construction firms have gone to court over an accounting squabble over their planned 1 billion-Turkish Lira project to construct three towers on the former site of Istanbul’s Ali Sami Yen stadium.

The project had envisioned the construction of three towers, two of which were expected to be residential while the other one was to be an office tower.

The highest building was to be 43 floors.

The Housing Development Administration of Turkey (TOKİ) contracted out the plot of the stadium with a revenue sharing model early last year.

Aşçıoğlu İnşaat has said there was a change in some of the accounting practices and that certain decisions made by the other firms were not relayed to them.

Aşçıoğlu subsequently opened a case against both Torunlar and Kapıcıoğlu, asking the court to appoint professional arbitrators to the case. Then the court assigned an arbitration commission comprised of three professors, namely Hasan İşgüzar, Mehmet Ali Erten and Mehmet Demir.

Torunlar GYO’s lawyer, Mahmut Karabıyık, said Aşçıoğlu’s claims were unfounded and added that it was impossible for there to be any accounting discrepancies.

‘Unfounded claims’
“Such a thing is impossible and they are aware of every decision. They were sent an invitation before each meeting. They are informed about everything,” Karabıyık told daily Hürriyet.

The disagreement between the parties stems from three separate payments, according to Karabıyık. The first is a payment to TOKİ for 1.85 million liras, the second is a 105,000-lira payment and the third is a 23,356-lira payment.

“In any case, these are small payments for the scope of this project,” said Karabıyık.

In a tender held by TOKİ, in 2010 Asçıoğlu won the rights for construction on the land for 461.5 million liras.

The initial plan was to complete the construction work of three blocks by May 2014. However, the work was halted in April 2011 due to the disputes between the parties.

Ali Sami Yen, which was opened in 1964, was one of the most iconic venues in Turkish football and the home to Istanbul football giant Galatsaray for 47 years.

The stadium witnessed 14 of Galatasaray’s 17 Turkish league titles. Along with the Turkish national team, other Istanbul teams also played numbers of national and international matches at Ali Sami Yen.
TOKİ built Galatasaray’s new Türk Telekom Arena in exchange for the land of the club’s former Ali Sami Yen Stadium.