About

At Koç Holding, Turkey’s largest industrial and services group in terms of revenues, exports, number of employees and shares on Borsa İstanbul, the in-house legal team of 16 is led by Kenan Yilmaz and four senior lawyers following a recent expansion. As testament to the legal team’s legal and business acumen, there is not a single dispute with its 13 joint venture partners, despite the company’s size and diverse operations. A combination of good, close communication with senior management, which then enables legal’s early involvement, and robust structuring of legal documentation can be said to be responsible for this success in managing external business relationships. ‘We try to avoid disputes by drafting fair documentation, which is based on a win-win understanding’, says Yilmaz. As a business-minded legal team that provide feedback by understanding the needs of the business, they do not simply state the risk and step back. ‘We also try to protect our company’s reputation and think of the long term impacts of certain investments and projects, and we have to prevent taking risks which may in the short term seem economically beneficial’, adds Yilmaz. The team also recently improved the innovation and intellectual property (IP) processes for Koç’s group companies, providing guidance with the assistance of innovation and IP managers who are part of the legal team. This further helps with early stage assessments of the investment strength of a project, subsequently saving time and money for the business. As an example of their skills and acumen, in 2012 the legal team helped secure the company’s successful $5.7bn bid to win a 25-year highway concession by negotiating the bid with its two partners UEM, a state-owned Malaysian engineering group, and Gozde, a private equity group owned by Turkey’s Yildiz Holding conglomerate.