My paper deals with how European capital investments operated in Istanbul during the final years of the Ottoman Empire. I focus on the formation of the Belgian-registered Constantinople Tramway and Electric Company (CTEC). In the course of the Second Constitutional Period (1908-1918), this multinational acquired the financial and administrative control of the Ottoman Tramway, Funicular, and Electric Companies in Istanbul. It played an important role in the transformation of the urban structure of the city in this process by financing not only the construction of the Silahtarağa Power Plant but also the expansion and electrification of the tramway lines on the European side of the city. My paper argues that the repayment of the loans extended by CTEC became a major problem right after the de facto occupation of Istanbul by the Allied powers in November 1918. This problem came to surface with a struggle between CTEC and the Ottoman municipal government (Şehremaneti) over the prices of services provided by the Tramway, Funicular, and Electric Companies. I demonstrate that during the initial years of the Allied occupation in Istanbul, this struggle evolved into a major political issue with the intervention of the French authorities to back CTEC’s demand of quadrupling the prices against the resistance of the municipal government, and with the rise of the organized labor movement that demanded a substantial increase in salaries.