Port Operation in Turkey: An Overview of Applicable Legislation

Over the last decade, the operation of port facilities has been among the top investment opportunities in Turkey, attracting the attention of both local and foreign investors. This comes as no surprise given the country's long coastlines covering major international transportation routes. Sixteen ports have been privatized by the State in the past seventeen years, and privatization transactions concerning some ports (e.g. İskenderun, Bandırma and Samsun) have also been accompanied by transfer operations among private parties (e.g. Antalya port has been the subject of private commercial transactional activity since its privatization in 1998).

Transfer operations involving the ports of Turkey exhibit certain qualities that differentiate them transactionally from ordinary share or asset transfer deals. This is due mainly to the fact that the core of these transactions has dealt with the transfer of rights related to the land upon which the port facilities were