About

What are the most important transactions and litigations that you have been involved in during the last two years?

Migros as a company operating in several segments of retail, i.e. grocery stores, fast delivery, e-commerce,  requires a good variety of legal services. For instance, our legal team has a strong presence in NGO working groups on legislative activities, as well as we provide all the necessary legal assistance regarding opening new stores or acquiring new companies.

Data privacy compliance has been one of the main focus points lately. Our legal team have put in so many hours on understanding and classifying data at hand and preparing the data inventory as well as taking necessary internal measures. So our legal team will keep on investing in data privacy in the upcoming days.

Another important transaction our legal team was involved in has been the acquisition of a part of Paket Lojistik’s (Paket Lojistik Ve Teknoloji Anonim Şirketi) shares by Migros. This is the first time that Migros became a shareholder of a start-up firm which is a strategic step taken for strengthening Migros’ fast delivery and e-commerce operations. Our legal team smoothly conducted and closely followed the legal procedures in this transaction.

What have been the major external trends that have impacted your team’s work over the past two years (market developments, changing regulatory environment, political events etc.)?

One of the most important externalities companies have to encounter in Turkey is inarguably inflation. In particularly food inflation had a strong effect in the retail market as Migros, among other retailers, had to increase its shelf prices mainly due to its suppliers’ increasing costs. Besides, increase of government regulations and audits in stores became more frequent. Our legal team has been involved in these procedures when necessary.

As a global trend, the rise of e-commerce and the customer’s tendency to shop online also affected Migros’ business model. Even though this trend has a positive influence over Migros’ Sanal Market e-commerce operations, a broader legal services is required in cases such government’s recent regulations (such as digital tax law), complex consumer rights demands or the need of acquiring new firms (like Paket Lojistik). So our legal team keeps catching up on all these legal issues.

What will be the main focus for the company in the next 12 months and how do you intend to assist with this?

Our main focus is to finalise our VERBİS registration before the year ends. While the registration of a big inventory stands ahead of us, we do not expect any serious problem in this project where our legal team mainly collaborates with our IT team beside other departments.

In 2020, one of the most important items in our agenda will definitely be the Turkish Competition Authority’s investigation regarding the fruit and vegetable sales in grocery retailers. We will work to get a successful and no-fine conclusion to this investigation by collaboration of our competition compliance team (a part of our legal team) and our sales and marketing departments.

Moreover, Migros legal team has been putting in respectable opinions on the draft law amending the Law on Regulation of the Retail Trade at the sessions of the NGOs Migros is a member of. As far as we know, there is an ongoing legislation process at the Parliament’s end. In 2020, we foresee working on this particular legislation more and finally reaching a conclusion beneficial for all stakeholders in the sector and compatible with the dynamics of the market.

Does the team use any “legal tech” products and do you find them a helpful management device?

We utilise several technical programs developed by Migros IT services to handle some automatised legal procedures such as;

• OPSIS: This is a database where all of the documentation regarding the lawsuits and execution files together with the contracts that Migros is a party to saved.
• Project Request System: Other departments send their legal service request to the Migros legal team and they can follow the process through until the final approval.
• OTONET: When we receive a notice of levy or transfer, we need to collect the accounting records from all relevant departments. Otonet helps us with these correspondences and after that we save the petition in Otonet database, so it contains all the notices, the correspondences and the response petitions altogether.

In what ways do you see the in-house legal role in evolving in your region over the next few years>

We see that the in-house legal role is getting more and more focused on being a bridge between the business departments and law, rather than handling purely legal issues. So the core role of the in-house lawyer is to make the company compliant with the law. To cope with this role, the in-house lawyer is expected to know the regulations by heart and detect the legal risks in the first place and then shed a light on the path for the management to eliminate such risks.

On the other hand, in terms of external relations with third parties such as the government or NGOs, the in-house lawyer is expected to have a solid grasp on the business and the sector, to protect the company’s best interest in such platforms. This requires a multi-disciplinary approach to legal matters.

FOCUS ON: The rising trend of legal tech utilisation

Migros spends respectable effort, money and time in technological transformation in many aspects and gains efficiency in this respect. As a matter of fact, the tone and attention of the top on technological transformation and digitalisation of procedures has been spread around the company and it is safe to say that now it became a company culture. That is to say, each and every department have an appetite on transformation of its own procedures to a more technological version and that brings up a synergy effect.

Migros legal team, therefore, is well aware of the importance and benefits of legal tech. We are mostly focused on creating intra-company solutions by the help of our IT team. We believe that our legal team which is mostly consist of 10+ year experienced lawyers would provide Migros a better quality legal services if they do not spend their valuable time and effort on automatable procedures. Utilising legal tech products is the far reaching practice that could be help of, in this regard.

Beside the Migros-focused approach, lawyers now witness the rise of legal tech more comprehensively, even reaching AI levels. We are in the opinion of technology is not a threatening enemy but an ally that we can benefit from. Therefore Migros legal team is willing to keep itself up with the novelties and improvements in terms of legal tech. We believe that the uncertainty and volatility caused by technology can be overcome with technology again.