About

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

As in-house lawyers we have to prevail the full knowledge of the business side of the sector that we are working for. As in-house lawyers we generally have a knowledge not only on the legal side, but also on the business and commercial side including products and services. Thus, I can easily say that it is a richness for a lawyer to work as a legal expert in a niche sector like management of airport operations, which covers a wide range of areas including different countries with many different local law and different sub-sectors such as the retail, security, food and beverages and IT.  In-house lawyers should be constantly be in touch with business partners regarding their needs. The relationship between two parties would be more effective and result-oriented and a very best example of team working. Consequently I believe that the responsiveness and the transparency and the importance of the sharing information is also critical.

What “legal tech” products do you currently utilise, and do you foresee implementing more of these in the near future?

Kazanci – Legislation and court decisions search engine system.

UYAP – National Judiciary Informatics System; submission of Petitions, reviews of cases, monitoring trial dates, filing suits, appeals and more.

Have any new laws, regulations or judicial decisions greatly impacted your company’s business or your legal practice?

In Turkey as the legislation changes are very frequent, as lawyers we have to be updated and follow all the latest modifications. For the regulation changes we are monitoring and preparing immediately legal opinions on the effects of the modifications for the relevant departments to be affected by those legislation changes.

As the main recent example; the Turkish Personal Data Protection Law has been adopted in 2016, which saw the optimization of our internal system and the creation of a compliance report system. Regarding this, an adaptation period has also been implemented by our department, and we are still making important updates within this framework.

That said, we are not following only Turkish legislations, we are also involved in the main important legislation in Europe, as well as the regulations for the geographical regions that we are in operation such as Macedonia, Georgia, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia.

We have separate legal consultancy departments within our overseas subsidiaries, especially in Georgia, Macedonia, and Tunisia, Saudi Arabia. It is normal they are separate legal departments in these countries as we cannot know their local law. But they are reporting to us we work in close contact with these departments and provide them with support when necessary.

Due to being a part of French Airport Operator Company, Aeroports de Paris (ADP), as well as ADP’s internal politics are applicable for us as well. Finally Sapin II Law is adopted in France, so accordingly our internal policies as well as required documents are being updated in order to meet those requirements.

What do you feel are the most effective techniques for getting the most out of external counsel, in terms of how to instruct them?

To be an expert in every subject and specific branch of law is not realistic. We need to try to understand as much information in our responsibility horizon as possible, by this time of innovation and quick grooving of the technology the information becomes expert oriented. Naturally we have to profit from the experts requiring deep knowledge areas. We appreciate the expertise of the consultants and we have to learn also from them.

We are working with external counsels particularly in specific and international projects, also for abroad projects that we are not familiar with national local laws. Within this framework we are working with close relationship in participation with our internal finance and business development teams. According to the importance and the specialty of the project, we think that the most efficient way to team up with the external counsels is to keep them as a real team member by ensuring the transparency as much as possible permitted by confidentiality requirements.

As TAV is a corporation which is rapidly developing and growing internationally, I have the chance to work on major international projects along with the largest and most important finance corporations and legal consultants. I think the responsiveness, timing and sense of responsibility are key roles for external legal counsels. Without the benefit of experience in business management, it can be easy to underestimate the importance of the decision-making processes in companies.