Category: Turkiye

Turkish lawyer Cankat Simsek, the former Senior Counsel at Vertiv, has joined Stryker as Regional Counsel covering CEE and Turkey.

Stryker is a Fortune 500 medical technologies firm. The company’s products include implants used in joint replacement and trauma surgeries; surgical equipment and surgical navigation systems; endoscopic and communications systems; patient handling and emergency medical equipment; neurosurgical, and neurovascular and spinal devices.

Simsek is a 2007 graduate of Ankara University. Before joining Stryker he spent over a year in-house with Gocay Insaat, two and a half years with Cigdemtekin Dora Aranci, over a year with ELIG, three and a half years in-house with Emerson, and three and a half years with Vertiv.

Simsek reports that he joined Stryker as “a new challenge in a totally different sector and … a very important experience for me to grow.”

Serra Haviyo and Yasemin Koyuncu have been promoted to Partner at the Gur Law Firm.

Haviyo, who has been with the Gur  Law Firm since 2014, specializes in corporate law, mergers & acquisitions, real estate and construction transactions, tenancy law, law of contracts, business, and labor law. According to the Gur Law Firm, “she has advised and assisted both local and foreign companies to establish joint ventures, drafted and negotiated share purchase agreements, shareholders agreements, subscription agreements, joint venture, and partnership agreements conducted legal due diligence processes and prepared numerous commercial agreements. She also has broad experience in advising different companies of multinational brands in the process of their implementation in Turkey and incorporating any type of company, branch and liaison offices.” Haviyo graduated from the University of Koc in 2009, and prior to joining Gur, she practiced law for over two years with the Postacioglu Law Office and almost two and a half years with the Borbay Law Office.

Koyuncu, who been with the firm since 2017, specializes in IP matters including copyrights, unfair competition, and other related areas of practice such as mass media, consumer protection, advertising, and competition law, as well as advising on both contentious and non-contentious matters including implementing IP protection and enforcement strategies and representing clients before the Ankara IP courts. She also works in IP enforcement where she supervises and drafts oppositions and appeals on trademark and design applications before the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office. According to the Gur Law Firm, “with almost 9-years of experience on IP, Yasemin has been involved in numerous anti-counterfeiting campaigns and she represents foreign, multinational, and Turkish clients from various business sectors including food and beverage, fashion, cosmetics, textile, electronics, hotel and tourism, pharmaceuticals, stationary on all aspects of Intellectual Property and regulatory matters.” She graduated from the Marmara University School of Law and holds LL.M.s from both the Istanbul Bilgi University and the University of Maastricht. Before she joined Gur, she practiced law for four years with Deris Intellectual Property Attorneys and almost a year with Moroglu Arseven.

Bezen & Partners has successfully represented Turkish football player Omer Kerim Ali Riza in a dispute with the Turkish Football Federation before The European Court of Human Rights.

According to Bezen & Partners, the ECHR decided that the Turkish Football Federation had violated Article 6/1 (Right to a Fair Hearing) of the European Convention on Human Rights in its decision rendered in respect of Ali Riza, a former Turkish professional football player.

In its reasoning, the ECHR found that the TFF’s Board of Directors, which had always largely consisted of members or executives of football clubs, had too strong an influence over the organization and functioning of the Arbitration Committee. The ECHR also ruled that the governing legislation of the TFF did not provide sufficient safeguards to protect members of the Arbitration Committee from outside influence.

The Bezen & Partners team consisted of Managing Partner Serdar Bezen and Senior Associate Zekican Samli.

The footprint of flexible workplaces (i.e., co-working spaces) continues to expand as more and more global businesses embrace the modern workforce and the increasing options for work arrangements. Turkey has joined the flexible workplace trend.

Both global businesses and remote workers such as freelancers and start-up entrepreneurs find flexible workplaces attractive, as these spaces provide cost-efficiency, wider networking opportunities, and increased productivity.

Flexible workplaces afford global businesses the flexibility they need in the current dynamic economic climate. We are witnessing technological advancements moving at an unprecedented pace and transforming how and where work is done. 

Nature of Flexible Workplace Agreements

As a co-working operation is a combination of lease, services, and even hospitality, there is no standard description for the agreements executed with the operators of such workplaces. In Turkey, operators refrain from defining these agreements as leases to avoid the mandatory lease provisions of the Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098, which have a pro-tenant approach. Instead, operators usually attempt to classify their flexible workplace agreements as “membership contracts” or “service contracts,” and to describe the users/occupiers of a co-working site as “members” or “customers.”

However, users and occupiers can range from a single self-employed freelancer needing just a desk to an international company that requires a dedicated room or office space for a medium-to-longer term across multiple jurisdictions. 

For example, for longer-term arrangements of dedicated spaces, users/occupiers seek membership/services contracts that (i) provide them with greater control of the space, and (ii) protect their usage rights. Such contracts usually evolve into traditional lease agreements.

Application of the Lease Provisions of the Turkish Code of Obligations to Flexible Workplace Agreements

The Turkish Code of Obligations defines a lease agreement as an agreement whereby the lessor allows the lessee to use a specific property for a specific period and the lessee undertakes to pay a fee or rent in return. The flexible workplace concept is quite new in the Turkish market and is not regulated by any specific legislation.

As explained above, flexible workplace agreements have the nature of a mixed contract. The expectation and intention of both the operator and the user in entering into a flexible workplace agreement is different than a traditional lease agreement, since traditional lease agreements limit the parties’ flexibility.

Users without a dedicated space – such as individual self-employed freelancers – usually pay for access to the flexible workplace to benefit from the services provided by the operator (such as Internet, printer, kitchen facilities, meeting room, reception, etc.), while utilizing a free space (desk, chair, etc.) to work. As this type of arrangement does not meet the conditions described under the Turkish Code of Obligations, we believe that the users may not be protected by it. Instead, this arrangement is similar to “members club” or “gym” memberships.

However, where the operator allows the user/occupier to use a specific property for a specific period in return for a fee, as described under the Turkish Code of Obligations, it can be argued that flexible workplace arrangements offering a dedicated space may be deemed a lease agreement.

Considering these facts and the complexity of flexible workplace agreements, it is difficult to come to a decisive conclusion as to whether or not the flexible workplace agreements are subject to the lease provisions of the Turkish Code of Obligations. 

The number of co-working spaces are increasing in Turkey, and global businesses prefer flexible workplaces over offices. As the application of the Turkish Code of Obligations is currently uncertain, the number of potential disputes arising from flexible workplace agreements may increase in the future. In the absence of specific regulations focused on co-working space arrangements, court precedent and scholars’ opinions will provide guidance on the interpretation of these agreements. Thus, time will show how users/occupiers’ usage rights, confidential information, trade secrets, data privacy, brands, and talent will be protected while operating in these shared environments.

By Birturk Aydin, Partner, and Kerem Kuscu, Senior Associate, Esin Attorney Partnership

This Article was originally published in Issue 6.11 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.

Paksoy has worked alongside global counsel Winston & Strawn in advising Danfoss A/S, a Danish manufacturer of heat transfer solutions, on its USD 3.3 billion acquisition of Eaton Corporation’s hydraulics business. Gibson & Dunn reportedly advised Eaton on the transaction, which remains subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close by the end of 2020.

The Paksoy team included Partner Elvan Aziz and Senior Associate Hazal Korkmaz.

The Winston & Strawn team included Partners Neely Agin, Uri Doron, Robert Heller, Eleni Kouimelis, Scott Landau, Jared Manes, Christopher Monahan, Conor Reidy, Becky Troutman, and Douglas Yeager and Counsel Francesca Guerrero.

Editor’s note: On August 9, 2021, Buzescu Ca informed CEE Legal Matters that it had acted as Romanian advisor to Danfoss. The global deal closed on August 2, 2021. The firm’s team included Partners Adrian Tomescu and Peter Buzescu.

Sinem Mermer has joined Turkey’s Boden Law Firm as Partner and Head of the firm’s new Technology and Innovation Practice.

According to the firm, Boden’s Technology and Innovation Practice will aim “to provide extensive and technical legal services whilst our clients are taking steps towards adapting their businesses to the ever-changing economic landscape.”

According to Boden, Mermer “has focused her practice on international matters – be it contracts or dispute settlement.  She advises corporate clients from various sectors such as automotive, healthcare, hospitality, energy, construction, infrastructure, logistics, banking and finance, media and entertainment, manufacturing and distribution on fintech, data and automation, AI, biotech and other emerging technologies. She assists clients in forming strategic alliances, handling compliance matters, international growth, and drafting, negotiating and managing contracts. Further, she actively manages complex international legal projects and consults clients on merger and acquisition matters involving venture capital firms. Understanding the value of big data and new trends of regulating data protection, Sinem provides legal advice to corporations on data collection, processing and sharing, and on issues in connection with multi-jurisdictional cybersecurity matters.”

Mermer holds an LL.B. from Istanbul Bilgi University and an LL.M. from Fribourg University in Switzerland. Prior to joining Boden she spent two years with Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, a year with Schellenberg Wittmer, and four years as a solo practitioner.

Necati Karabayir as has joined SOCAR Turkey as its new Group Compliance Director.

Karabayir joins SOCAR (The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic), which has been operating in Turkey since 2008, from the Vaillant Group, where he has worked for over six years as the Head of Legal & Compliance / Country General Counsel. Prior to that, he was a Senior Legal Counsel for Siemens between 2007 and 2013. Earlier still, he worked for Guner Law Firm as a Legal Counsel between 2006 and 2007.

Karabayir is a graduate of the Marmara University and holds an LLM from the Istanbul University.

The announcement of Karabayir’s hiring follows shortly after the news that Begum Yilmaz had also joined SOCAR Turkey as Senior Compliance Specialist (as reported by CEE Legal Matters on January 17, 2020).

Senior Partner Erdem Atilla has been appointed Head of Dispute Resolution at Pekin & Pekin in Turkey.

Atilla joined Pekin & Pekin immediately after graduating from the Galatasaray University in Istanbul in 2009. He was promoted to Partner in May 2018 and became Senior Partner in July 2019.

Pekin & Pekin’s Dispute Resolution Department consists, Atilla reports, of two senior partners (including him), one partner, one senior associate, one associate, and two trainees.

According to Atilla, “commercial lawsuits constitute a field where I can claim expertise. However, in Pekin & Pekin’s Dispute Resolution Department, we do not have sub-departments, meaning that I have been assisting clients in civil and criminal proceedings, mediation/settlement negotiations, intellectual property cases, employment cases, fraud & ethics investigations, administrative lawsuits, as well as arbitration proceedings. We also do advisory work by providing the clients with legal opinion and legal advice as per Turkish law.”

Atilla quotes Pekin & Pekin Founding Partner Ahmed Pekin as saying, “I compare litigators to gladiators of Rome. There is an arena (courtroom) and there are gladiators fighting (attorneys). You either live or die (win or lose the case). However, if you die as a gladiator, you die once; but if you lose the case as a lawyer, you cannot escape that easily!” According to Atilla, “I have always believed in the accuracy of this metaphor from the very beginning of my career at Pekin & Pekin back in 2009, and I believe it now, after ten years of litigation experience when I became Head of the Dispute Resolution Team where I used to work as a trainee once.”

“Apart from the legal issues, being a Team Leader is of course not only about your legal skills, Atilla told CEE Legal Matters. “What makes you a true leader, is in fact your soft skills. You must invest time in the role, influence your team to achieve its objectives, lead by example, reward the good and learn from the bad and, last but not least, communicate, communicate, communicate, etc.

After all, leading a Dispute Resolution Team is often challenging, but also rewarding if you do it right. Heading up a team that’s working well and delivering results is undoubtedly a great feeling, so I’m ready to enjoy it!”