Insight archive
Articles in this archive are general information and should be read in the legal context applicable on their publication date.
A distributor and a commercial agent are not the same legal model in Türkiye. A distributor normally purchases and resells in its own name and for its own account; an agent continuously intermediates for, and if authorised contracts on behalf of, the foreign principal. Termination, customer portfolio, non-compete, online-sales and goodwill-indemnity exposure depend on substance…
A Türkiye-connected commercial contract may select foreign law and arbitration, but mandatory Turkish rules, international jurisdiction, public policy, weaker-party protections, currency and sanctions restrictions can still affect the result. Contract language, authority, signature, notices and evidence are as important as the governing-law clause.
A foreign court judgment is not directly enforceable in Türkiye; an enforcement judgment is generally required under Turkish private international law. Foreign arbitral awards are enforced under the New York Convention or applicable Turkish statutes. Success depends not only on the decision, but also finality, due service, apostille and translation, competent court, public policy and…
Acquiring or partnering with a Turkish company is not merely a share purchase agreement. Ownership and authority records, ETDS, material contracts, workforce, licences, merger control, privacy and cyber incidents, and post-closing integration must be connected to one transaction thesis. Due diligence should convert findings into price, conditions, warranties, indemnities and closing decisions.
A foreign company with no subsidiary or branch in Türkiye may still face KVKK obligations where it offers goods or services to individuals in Türkiye, monitors their behaviour, or determines processing that produces effects in Türkiye. Because the KVKK lacks a territorial-scope provision equivalent to GDPR Article 3, the analysis should be grounded in the…
An employer may monitor email, devices, CCTV or security logs for legitimate business purposes, but monitoring is not unlimited. It requires a defined purpose, legal basis, necessity, proportionality, prior transparency, access controls and retention limits. Intrusion into personal communications or continuous location tracking may be unlawful where a less intrusive method would achieve the purpose.
The EU AI Act can apply to a company established in Türkiye even without an EU subsidiary. Scope may arise where the company places an AI system or general-purpose AI model on the EU market, or where output produced by a system used outside the EU is used in the Union. Provider, importer, distributor, deployer,…
A company should not assume that every AI output is automatically owned by it. Copyright analysis turns on identifiable human creative contribution, the category of work and the chain of title. Purely machine-generated or weakly documented outputs may face protection uncertainty, while employee, contractor, provider, training-data and open-source rights still require contractual and evidential governance.
A foreign seller or marketplace entering Türkiye needs more than a Turkish interface. Corporate and tax structure, ETHS/ETAHS status, ETBIS, commercial-message consent, distance-contract terms, returns, unlawful-content workflows, seller contracts, KVKK and the 2026 monetary thresholds must be assessed together.
Using an algorithm or vendor does not remove competition-law responsibility. Businesses should govern pricing inputs, access to competitor data, distributor instructions, platform clauses and HR cooperation through documented human oversight.