Turkey’s banking watchdog BDDK has refuted a report by Bloomberg that it ordered the dismissal of 11 senior private sector bankers.

In its rebuttal, the regulator said it reserved the right to take legal action. It characterised the report as baseless and false.

In its report, Bloomberg said the 11 former bankers claimed they were dismissed in the past two years on the orders of the BDDK. The regulator is overseen by Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Turkish authorities were extending their campaign against perceived political enemies in the country’s $750bn finance industry, the report said. All but one banker wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals for speaking out said Bloomberg, a news agency already in the midst of a court battle with the BDDK—in September, two of its reporters and 17 other defendants saw the start of a trial in which they are denying spreading false information about the Turkish economy at the height of the lira crisis during the summer of last year.

Removing ‘traitors’

Particularly since the currency crisis, those in charge of the economy in Turkey had set out to remove people it regarded as public or private sector traitors, the report added, citing two senior government officials. Pressure tactics and threats of legal action were increasingly deployed and it was notable that the private sector could no longer operate without government interference, bankers were quoted as saying. The bond and currency markets have been weakened by state intervention, they reportedly added.

Bloomberg observed that one senior loan official said he was forced out of his job in the aftermath of the currency crisis, but he was never told why. His CEO then told him in a patisserie that the regulator demanded that he be barred from the bank and his email shut down immediately, the report added.

Once officials responsible for lending decisions were fired, it cleared the way for pro-government businessmen to obtain the loans they needed, the banker said. “Ridiculous” debt restructuring demands were then quickly approved, the banker alleged.