The Legal 500

Legal Developments in Turkey

• Medical Malpractice:Critique of the Turkish and American Approaches to Awarding Non-Economic Damages

  When a doctor makes an error in your treatment, what legal compensation will be available? This is the central question in current medical malpractice litigation, one that is not easily answerable and that depends largely on the country in which you live. In the United States the past several decades have seen a rise in the number of medical malpractice suits, and escalating insurance premiums for healthcare providers amidst continued reports of medical error. In recent years the increase in medical malpractice litigation has been coupled with larger non-economic damage awards, reflecting concerns with maintaining quality care and holding healthcare professionals to acceptable standards of conduct. At the same time, such high awards have led state legislatures nationwide to respond with statutory limits on punitive and non-economic medical malpractice damages, in part due to concern that the risk of prohibitive legal expenses will drive competent, needed doctors out of the profession.
  - ADMD Law Office

• WARRANTS

  The Capital Markets Board of Turkey (the “CMB”) published a new communiqué regulating the principles regarding purchase and sale of warrants and the registration of the same with the CMB. By means of the said Communiqué, the CMB aims at introducing a new capital market instrument allowing trade of warrants in regulated exchanges. The CMB also aims at sustaining a more liquid and active market.
  - Pekin & Bayar Law Firm

• Getting the Deal Through: Real Estate

  The Turkish legal system is a civil code system. Parties may obtain an injunction from the courts upon depositing sufficient collateral, but the injunction can be lifted during the hearings upon a reasonable claim from a counterparty. Following the establishment of an injunction over real estate, such real estate cannot be transferred until the lawsuit is concluded or the injunction lifted. Parties are theoretically free to enter into oral contracts; however, evidence of such relationship may be difficult to establish before the courts since the rule of written evidence is applicable under Turkish Civil Procedure Code and therefore, oral contracts are not practical. Moreover, in certain situations, execution of a written contract is a legal requirement such as in real estate sales.
  - Paksoy

• Public Disclosures

  The Capital Markets Board of Turkey (the “CMB”) repealed its communiqué relating to public disclosure of certain events relating to publicly traded companies and replaced it with two new communiqués.
  - Pekin & Bayar Law Firm

• Regulatory Developments in the Turkish Real Estate Market

  This article contains information on the latest regulatory developments in the Turkish real estate market, in such areas as public tenders and real estate investment trusts. In particular, we wish to bring you up to date on developments that have occurred between December 2008 and March 2009.
  - Hergüner Bilgen Özeke

• MARKET SHARE THRESHOLD UNDER THE COMMUNIQUE ON BLOCK EXEMPTION REGARDING VERTICAL AGREEMENTS

   
  - Cerrahoglu Law Firm

• NON-COMPETITION CLAUSES UNDER TURKISH COMPETITION JURISPRUDENCE

  Any concentration between the parties may also include certain restrictions. Especially, restrictions are imposed on the vendor if the vendor has substantial know-how, customer portfolio and distribution network in the market and the purchaser is new to the market in question. In such situations, non-compete and non-solicitation clauses, restrictions on intellectual property rights and supply and purchase agreements may be imposed on the vendor in order to protect the business and the goodwill of such business acquired by the purchaser. Such restrictions are generally defined as “ancillary restrictions” under competition legislation. Under normal circumstances they would be considered as restricting competition in the market; however, in case of implementation of a concentration, they are not considered as anti-competitive but necessary if the scope, duration and the geographical area of such restrictions do not exceed what the implementation of the concentration reasonably requires.
  - Cerrahoglu Law Firm

• INSURANCE LAW IN TURKEY

  In parallel with the rapid growth in the Turkish insurance sector, there have been major changes to the Turkish insurance legislation in the last few years.   The Insurance Supervision Law which regulated insurance activities for 47 years has been replaced with Insurance Law No. 5684 (the Insurance Law ) in 3 June 2007.   In addition to the Insurance Law, there are specific pieces of legislation regulating the activities of individual professions in insurance industry (e.g. brokers, loss adjusters, etc.) and different types of insurance (e.g. life insurance, reinsurance, etc.).
  - Güner Law Office

• DEBT RESTRUCTURING: THE WAY FORWARD IN TURKEY

  The Turkish economy entered into a financial crisis in November 2000 and in February 2001 the crisis peaked and triggered a collapse in the value of the Turkish Lira.   Over a few days, the Turkish Lira lost more than 40 percent of its value against the major trading currencies and interest rates rose spectacularly overnight.   As result of this crisis a significant number of Turkish companies became bankrupt.
  - Güner Law Office

• DEVELOPMENTS IN TURKISH INSOLVENCY LAW

  The law governing Turkish Insolvency procedures known as the Execution and Bankruptcy Law (the EBL ) ( Icra Iflas Kanunu ) has in previous years been amended twice and has introduced new procedures for ailing companies. In this article, we will take a look at these procedures.
  - Güner Law Office