The Draft New Turkish Commercial Code

The Turkish Commercial Code (“TCC”) was adopted in 1956, inspired by arguably the best codes of its age and since then, it was only sporadically updated. An overall effort to modernize the TCC has been in progress for the past five years, and finally, the relevant Commission of the Ministry of Justice presented the “Turkish Commercial Code Draft” (“Draft Code”) for public opinion in late February 2005. The Draft Code aims to regulate commercial relations in line with the recent changes in the local and global business environment as well as technological and legal developments including the EU legislation. The Commission has paid particular focus to electronic transactions, consumer protection, minority shareholders’ rights and corporate governance. The Draft Code aims for an overall change, but in this article we will only draw attention to those issues we believe would be of most interest to foreign investors.