Practice Areas
Commercial and Company Law
Our law office provides services related to commercial and company law to domestic and foreign client companies operating in different sectors. This process includes all stages from the preparation of the company’s main contracts to the establishment, termination and liquidation of the company. Again, in this context, significant structural legal changes such as capital increases, share transfers, mergers and acquisitions, type changes, restructuring, etc. are managed. Taking commercial and legal risks into account, our clients are provided with the legal counseling service they need in their daily activities. These are in the form of the review of standard contract examples, the preparation and organization of various contracts such as service contracts, procurement contracts, license contracts, non-competition contracts. Furthermore, preparation of the drafts for the General Assembly and the Board of Directors, attendance at the meetings and performance of related transactions at the Trade Registry Office for the registration and notification of the transactions upon request are also included in our services.
Real Estate Law
Our law office provides services including real estate development, land purchase and sale, long term lease agreements, construction loans and leasing of housing and commercial assets. In addition, our law office follows up all the lawsuits arising from the preparation of construction agreements in return for land share and real estate sales agreements, rent adjustment, rental fee determination cases, the adequate pays. Our law office has experience in the processes and proceedings, especially in the context of urban transformation. In addition, our law office provides detailed legal examination of real estates for our foreign clients and presents these reports to our clients.
Intellectual and Industrial Property Law
Our expertise in the field of Intellectual and Industrial Property Law encompasses all aspects of intellectual and industrial property rights, including patents, utility models, trademarks, copyrights, designs, geographical indications and internet domain names. Our office is recognized as one of the leading law offices in the field of intellectual and industrial property law in Turkey. Our services include legal and penal lawsuits, representation in administrative proceedings, objection to registration applications, preparation of licenses, transfers, assignments and other contracts related to the intellectual property rights and provision of consultancy services in all these matters. Again in this context, our office has the experience in representing our clients in various Intellectual Property Disputes, including cancellation lawsuits against the decisions of the Turkish Patent Institute and compensation claims arising from violation cases and precautionary measures.
Law of Foreigners
Law of Foreigners constitutes one of the main areas in which our office has been serving for many years. Our law office strictly follows the regulations in Turkish material law and multilateral international treaties to which Turkey are a party regarding the law of foreigners. In this context, our law office provides legal counseling service on legislation regulating the rights of foreigners to work in Turkey and in this context it follows up the process of obtaining foreigners’ work permits and social security issues of foreigners. As well as providing consultancy services for real estate purchases of the foreign capital companies within the boundaries of our country, it is in close contact with the representatives of the various embassies and Consulates. On the other hand, our law office provides consultancy services on legal legislation such as free zone law, foreign commercial companies’ acquisition of properties in free zones, tourism promotion law, industrial zone law. Another service provided by our law office under this heading is the fiduciary duties regarding the criminal offenses against foreigners. The extradition and the contracts for the extradition are again under this heading.
Concordatum and Restructuing
With the Law on Enforcement and Bankruptcy No. 7101 published in the Official Gazette dated 15.03.2018 and the Law on Amendments in Certain Laws, the existing concordatum organization was reconstructed and the postponement of bankruptcy was completely abolished. In this context, the concordatum provisions in the Law on Enforcement and Bankruptcy and in other laws were amended. The concordatum that took the place of the postponement of bankruptcy contains some similarities and differences when compared to the postponement of bankruptcy. The concordatum means agreement and, in the simplest terms, it is an accepted organozation for the protection of honest debtors whose businesses are not working well and whose financial conditions have deteriorated for the reasons beyond their control. The purpose here is to structure the debts of these well-intentioned honest debtors. In this context, the honest debtor agrees with his/her creditors and proposes to pay some of his/her debts. Our law office has worked on the newly created concordatum system following the realization of the related legislative amendments and has had experience in the follow up and execution of the concordatum process in this direction. In the functioning of the concordatum, being deeply in debt, details of the debt balance sheet, meetings of creditors, acceptance conditions of the concordatum, acceptance of the project, allocation of shares and preparation of activity reports are very strictly regulated in the legislation. Especially time periods are of great importance in the operation of concordatum. Concordatum system, in this respect, is also important in terms of commercial and social life as well as the legal life such as the improvement of the investment climate in our country, the agreement of the creditors and the debtors as a result of the negotiations and the certification of the agreement by the court. For this reason, our law office provides legal counseling and attorney services to our clients in obtaining the most benefit from the restructuring process.
E-Commerce Law
E-commerce law is based on the law no. 6563 on the regulation of electronic commerce, Internet law no. 5651, Industrial property law no. 6769, law no. 6698 on the protection of personal data, commercial law, unfair competition law, competition law. Therefore, it is obvious that the scope of the e-commerce law, which is a very important legal field for the information economy, the increased use of the internet in industry and technology and the increase of the industry 4.0 applications enabled that mobile phones, intelligent systems, bank cards, e-commerce platforms, cloud networks connected to the internet can be implemented more and more in the industry, and these applications cause the individual to change the purchase, form and quantity. In this context, our law office provides guidance for the determination of whether these proceedings are carried out in accordance with the legislation, the prevention of illegality and the resolution of disputes, and it provides legal counseling services in matters such as cryptocurrency systems and smart contracts in the perspective of European Union.
Entrepreneurship Law and Start-up Companies
In the direction of the principle that the data is the fuel of economy, our law office provides consultancy services for entrepreneur companies since the start of their activities, mainly technology companies. There is still no legislation and legal regulations in Turkey which we can call entrepreneurship law. As the entrepreneurship in America and Europe dates back to much earlier than our country, many contracts signed between the investor and the entrepreneur, such as confidentiality agreements, franchise agreements, letter of intent, due diligence, have a long established structure. On the other hand, in order to develop new businesses, the structures called “incubator”, where office services, access to equipment, technical and financial resources are provided in the same place, began to develop gradually in our country. In the direction of these structures, the technology development zones are also enlarging their activity areas and becoming centers of attraction for the cities. The inventions of the workers and rights of inventions arising from these centers have begun to come to light in recent years as an important financial and legal issue. For example, inventions in higher education institutions and in publicly funded projects. On the other hand, the age and period-specific exemptions for young entrepreneurs in tax legislation are also important. Law branches such as contracts based on industrial property law and law on the protection of personal data, corporate law, law of obligations, e-commerce law should also be closely followed by entrepreneurs. Beyond that, perhaps the most important issue for entrepreneurs has been the introduction of mass funding to the Capital Markets Law no. 6362. As you can see, entrepreneurship law is taking the steps to become a new law branch that encompasses many law branches but can be shaped according to the need. In this context, our law office provides the necessary legal counseling services to start-up companies and entrepreneurs.
Franchise Agreements
The history of the franchising system dates back to the contracts between beer producers and pub owners in England in 1700s. With the regulation made in those years, the sale of alcoholic beverages was limited. The limited number of licenses also caused license prices to rise to the levels exceeding the economic power of small pub owners selling alcoholic beverages. As a solution to this, alcoholic beverage producers with a sufficient economic power purchased licenses on their own behalf and to lease alcoholic beverage sales licenses to those who sell alcoholic beverages. After these events, which took place in England during 1700s, the presence franchising was accepted. The franchising system with such historical background is not specifically regulated in Turkish law; and based on the provisions of sales, lease, representation, service, revenue, and agency in the Turkish Code of Obligations, franchising agreements have become hybrid agreements with their own unique structure. However, according to the group exemption communiqué regarding the franchising agreements no. 1998-7 issued by the competition authority, the franchise agreement is an agreement in which the franchisor gives the franchisee the right to use a franchise for the purpose of marketing certain types of goods and/or services, directly or indirectly, against a financial contribution, that at least includes the obligations to use a common brand or trade name and to provide a uniform view of the facilities and/or means of transport, that includes the obligations of transfer of know-how to the franchisee from the franchisor, as well as the provision of continuous commercial and technical support to the franchisee from the franchisor during the term of agreement. In Turkey, a great development has started to take place in the franchising system. However, retail sales within the scope of franchising have a rate of 40% in America, 25% in Europe and 5% in Turkey. Therefore, it seems that the franchising system has a bright future. The contracts and disputes related to the franchising system are tried to be resolved in line with the general provisions and the judicial opinion of the Supreme Court. Hence, it is very obvious that a special legal counseling is required in healthy and legal functioning of the franchise system and disputes between the parties. In this context, our law office provides legal counseling and advocacy services in franchise systems and disputes between the parties.
Agricultural Law
The legal works for the agricultural sector in Turkish Law were established up to the recent years in line with the provisions of Turkish Civil Code and Turkish Code of Obligations. However, agricultural law is a developing law branch, together with the European Union’s common agricultural policy and due to the purchase of Turkish agricultural companies by foreign international companies, and then the application of the newly developed IT-assisted industry practices to the agricultural industry. In this context, important subjects come to the forefront such as the e-commerce practices in agriculture, intellectual property rights, protection of agricultural technologies with patents, reflections of the sharing economies in agricultural areas; the determination of the rights and obligations of agricultural workers in the context of labor law, and the management of grants, insurance and state incentives provided in agricultural areas. In this respect, our law office provides consultancy services to local and foreign agricultural companies within the scope of EU law and Turkish law.
Labor Law
We provide consultancy services to our clients on the subjects of preparation of workplace personnel regulations and instructions, regulation of high-level white collar, blue collar labor contracts, enforcement and provision of harmonization works with labor legislation and occupational health and safety rules, execution of audit works to the extent necessary in this scope, the restructuring of the workforce, management of the consolidation of the workforce before or after the company merger or takeover, termination and mutual rescission negotiations of labor contracts. Our law office prepares trainings for employees of client companies on many subjects such as compliance with legislation, business ethics, use of social media, preventive regulations for the establishment of monopoly, white collar crimes, workplace practices for the prevention of corruption, contract negotiations, cooperates with our clients’ domestic or overseas human resources or legal departments for these trainings.
We provide counseling and advocacy for lawsuits and disputes based on labor legislation that are frequently encountered and experienced in labor law (severance payment, notice payment, overtime, weekly vacation fee, employee salaries, reemployment lawsuits, annual leave and any kind of workmanship claims, uncovered services to make insured employees’ uninsured periods without insurance notification, action for fixing of service period filed in order to provide insurance for the duration of employment without an insurance, pecuniary and non-pecuniary compensation lawsuits to work accidents, lawsuits for the loss of support). In addition, mobbing, which is a special branch of labor law, is increasing due to many factors such as today’s constantly changing business conditions, competitive labor market, intra-office competition, unemployment rates, economic crisis, tendency of companies to shrink. For this reason, mobbing has become one of the most important problems of today’s working life. Many workers are are exposed to mobbing throughout their working life. This subject is especially one of our company’s expertise fields. Our law office provides legal counseling and advocacy services for the termination of the employment contract for good cause, compensation claims and protection cases due to mobbing.
International Child Abduction Crimes
The Hague Convention on the Aspects of International Child Abduction is a one of our company’s expertise fields. This convention has increased in importance especially due to the international identity of trade in the world and the free movement of people engaged in business. Because of the disappearance of limitations in the world trade, widespread visa liberalization, increased opportunities for international education, and opportunities especially for white-collar workers allowing them to continue their business life in different countries. This business life has also been reflected in the unity of family and multicultural family members with more than one passport have begun to grow up. Inevitably, in this direction, the ending of the marriage union and sharing of properties have also begun to gain an international character. The Hague Convention on the Child Abduction is a treaty that requires the immediate repatriation of a child who has been detained or held in in one of the Contracting Parties from persons who live in one of the Contracting Parties and who have violated the guardianship rights of the remaining parents. After the child is repatriated, the guardianship dispute can be resolved, if necessary, in courts of competent jurisdiction. The Convention does not address who should be available in the guardianship of the child; it addresses where the guardianship case is to be tried. Each Contracting Party designates a Central Authority, which is a specific government office, in order to carry out specific contractual obligations. Central Authorities communicate with each other and help parents to apply for the return or access of their children under the Convention. In accordance with Article 6 of the Convention and Article 4 of Law No. 5717, in order to fulfill the obligations provided for in the Convention, the Ministry of Justice has appointed the General Directorate of International Law and Foreign Relations as the central authority and the central authority fulfills this duty through the local Chief Public Prosecutor’s Offices.
Our law office has also carefully examined the practices of the Hague Convention in domestic law for a majority of European countries that are party to the Convention and countries that have cultural and commercial importance such as USA, Australia and England. Although the Convention has an international character, the parties have reflected this Convention with a number of differences in their domestic law. For example, there are some differences between the application of the Turkish Supreme Court and the practices of the other parties. In this context, the Hague Convention on the Aspects of International Abduction also draws attention as a legal mechanism besides being the international remedies, which have direct consequences for the child and the family. In this context, our law office provides legal counseling and advocacy services in line with the guardianship rights of Turkish and foreign white-collar family members arising out of the Convention.
Enforcement Law
Our law office provides advocacy services to domestic and foreign clients in order to get rid of those unfairly exposed execution proceedings as well as to help them to collect their receivables. We provide services on the subjects of starting the receivables follow-up, imposing a lien of the the debtor’s assets, collecting the receivables by carring out the sale of the assets, conducting negotiations with lenders and creditors, preparing the necessary contracts within the framework of reconciliation reached as a result of negotiations with the clients’ creditors, all kinds of debt management services regarding the debt restructuring, insolvency and concordatum in particular, and legal services required at the every stage of the concordatum process.
European Union Law