What is your primary area of practice, and what drew you to it?

Working at well-known international law firms for eleven years and having the privilege of being part of seasoned teams (6 years in Corporate, M&A, and 5 years in Litigation teams) has helped me to become expert in various areas of law. Thereafter, I decided to establish my own law firm to provide clients with full-fledged services in private law.

And now, while being a full-service law firm, we have in-depth experience and expertise in certain specific fields such as M&A, Projects (IP, IT and Construction), International Arbitration and Commercial Litigation. In recent years, I have engaged in many complex commercial litigation and arbitration proceedings (e.g.: representation of State of Libya, State of Georgia, Coca-Cola Turkiye before Turkish courts) and in many transactions (e.g.: Northern Marmara Motorway (YSS III. Bridge) Project, TURKSAT 6A Satellite Project, 5G Radio-Link Project, tens of M&As). On top of these, we provide defense and car rental companies, marinas, port operators, hotels, shopping malls with legal services on a retainer basis.

Tell us about a recent memorable project, matter or case that you’ve worked on. What was fun? What was challenging?

A Belgian-based company, had a dispute with its distributor. It was unable to collect its receivables. The client approached us to settle this matter in Turkish courts. Even though we knew we had a very good chance of winning the case, we also recognized that such a case would take 36 – 48 months, would be expensive, and would face substantial execution/collection challenges when we won.

So, to resolve the dispute, we devised a clever and practical solution: we persuaded the distributor to transfer its assets to the client’s Turkish subsidiary in exchange for Client’s receivables by first researching distributor’s possessions (we discovered significant assets; e.g., trucks, vehicles, movables, immovables, customers, and equipment without any encumbrances) and by smoothly playing the interim injunction card, which was detrimental to distributor’s operations.

We have advised the client to negotiate with the distributor for transfer of certain amount of these assets. The client found this advice feasible since it was willing to expand its operation in Turkiye. So, we pushed the start button and evaluated and minimized the legal risks that may arise out of a substantial assets transfer (formalities, responsibilities of the parties, possibility of actions of annulment of disposition against the transfer). After that, we drafted, negotiated, executed all contracts, and duly transferred the aforementioned assets, and more importantly received sufficient collateral to cover the legal risks.

Since the pandemic, what is one thing that has improved in your life?

First and foremost, the pandemic has made us realize the value of health, which is sometimes neglected in business life. I also value the time I have spent with my family while working remotely. From business perspective, though I am not a techie, I have enhanced my ability to operate and manage my team remotely. We are now able to apply flexible work schedules in our law firm as a result of our experience during the pandemic.

And now, a wild-card question: What’s your favorite place to visit and why?

Göcek! A pretty harbor town where the mountains, little islands and Mediterranean meet. In summer times, I spend a couple of weeks at the bay of Göcek with my family and friends. I would be pleased to accompany the Ally Law members who wish to see Göcek.