Hafize Gaye Erkan, the newly appointed Governor of the Central Bank of Turkey, is facing a class action lawsuit initiated by customers of a failed US-based bank, as revealed by Razi Canikligil, the US correspondent of Hürriyet daily.
Canikligil shared the petition filed on 24 April by disgruntled customers who accuse Erkan of misconduct, in a Twitter announcement on Friday.
According to Canikligil’s statement, “Customers of the defunct First Republic Bank, where Hafize Gaye Erkan previously held a directorial position in the US, have recently filed a class action lawsuit against her. The legal action accuses Erkan, now the Governor of the Central Bank of Turkey, of breaching banking laws and disseminating false and misleading statements. The lawsuit, filed on 24 April 2023, specifically focuses on Erkan’s tenure as co-CEO of First Republic Bank.”
Erkan’s appointment was praised by pro-government circles in Turkey, who made unsubstantiated claims about her background. These claims included assertions that she obtained a PhD in financial engineering from Princeton, one of the most prestigious schools in the US, within a year, and became the youngest finance professor in the country.
Meanwhile, Prof. Dr. Sevda Demiralp of Koç University has suggested that the misleading presentation of Erkan may serve as an attempt to conceal her past experience as CEO of the failed First Republic Bank.