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Plaintiffs Score Early Victory vs Turkish Banks in Genocide Lawsuit

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  • Plaintiffs Score Early Victory vs Turkish Banks in Genocide Lawsuit

    Plaintiffs Score Early Victory against Turkish Banks in Armenian
    Genocide Lawsuit

    LOS ANGELES, CA. -- A U.S. federal district court in Los Angeles
    handed Armenian plaintiffs an early victory in what will surely be a
    difficult legal battle over reparations for land seized from Armenians
    in Turkey during the Armenian Genocide (Alex Bakalian et. al vs.
    Republic of Turkey, the Central Bank of Turkey, and T.C. Ziraat
    Bankasi et. al, Case Number 2:10-CV-09596, December 15, 2010). Nearly
    eight months after the complaint was filed, the court determined that
    all three defendants, in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit in the United
    States, had been lawfully served.

    The lawsuit, filed by descendants of Armenian Genocide victims,
    accuses the defendants of stealing and then profiting from land that
    was illegally seized during the Armenian Genocide, when the Ottoman
    Turks drove Armenians from the Adana region of southern Turkey. The
    property at issue in the lawsuit is currently part of a strategic U.S.
    airbase in southern Turkey.

    Representing the plaintiffs are the Yeghiayan Law Firm in Glendale,
    Schwarcz, Rimberg, Boyd & Rader, LLP in Los Angeles and Michael
    Bazyler from Chapman University School of Law in Orange.

    The plaintiffs have spent recent months attempting to serve all the
    defendants, and then to have the court affirm their service efforts.
    In the August 2 order, the court denied Central Bank of Turkey and
    Ziraat Bank's motion to dismiss the complaint for insufficient service
    of process. The court acknowledged that the plaintiffs presented
    `credible evidence that their process servers made several attempts to
    serve the bank defendants at addresses in `New York City... were
    repeatedly denied access to the buildings and ...misdirected as to
    Ziraat Bank's actual location.'

    The court further found that the banks' security guards had `engaged
    in behavior apparently designed to thwart service of process.' The
    banks did not deny having actual knowledge of the pending lawsuit, and
    thus the court ordered them to serve a responsive pleading to the
    complaint by August 19.

    The court additionally recognize that the Republic of Turkey had also
    been recently served with the complaint through diplomatic channels-a
    lengthy process involving high-level contacts between the U.S. Embassy
    in Ankara, Turkey, and the Turkish Foreign Ministry-and must also file
    papers responding to the complaint by August 19.

    `From the outset, the banks have sought to make it as difficult as
    possible to litigate this lawsuit,' says Vartkes Yeghiayan with the
    Yeghiayan Law Firm. `Finally, after months of maneuvering and numerous
    attempts to evade service, the U.S. federal court has required all
    three defendants to respond to the Armenians' complaint.'

    ###

    For a copy of the complaint and court order, contact Diane Zakian
    Rumbaugh at [email protected], 805-493-2877.

    Center for Armenian Remembrance

    CenterAR News


    From: Baghdasarian
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