Turkey's Savings and Deposits Insurance Fund says that it has seized the assets of some 219 companies controlled by the Uzan familiy, saying that they had failed to repay debts of more than US$5.5 billion.

The Uzan family are currently engaged in legal action with Nokia and Motorola who are suing them over allegations of misusing vendor loan funds. Turkey accuses the Uzans of being involved in bank fraud - a charge denied by the family.

The GSM network operator, Telsim which is at the center of the Motorola/Nokia lawsuit, was one of the 219 companies seized.

Turkish authorities say that an investigation into the Uzan-run Imar Bank revealed a huge deficit, established that the company hid the real number of its clients and sold non-existing treasury bonds.

Several Uzan family members - including the head of the family, Kemal Uzan - are on the run, while others are standing trial along with company managers. Arrest warrants have been issued for Kemal Uzan, his brother Yavuz and Kemal's younger son Hakan, on charges of embezzlement, fraud and irregular off-shore transactions.

The SDIF made a statement regarding their seizure of the Uzan companies “The operation which has been started today is aimed at collecting the public receivables in accordance with the Banking Law and other related laws.” In the statement it was also remarked: “After further examinations to determine the bank deposits obligation, it was determined that the bank had an obligation ten times more than seen in its accounting records. It is hard to imagine embezzlement of such scale.”

Earlier this month, a US federal appeals court rejected a second appeal by the Uzan family, who were trying to reverse the US$4.2 billion judgment that Motorola and Nokia won last summer