About

The Turkish legal team for global fast food chain McDonald’s is led by legal manager Leylan Demirag Aktas. Despite the company deciding to close many of its restaurants in Turkey in recent years, the need for in-house legal support has increased according to Aktas. Some of their standout work centred on their advice on restaurant location purchases where they protected the company from future legal disputes, probable closures and loss of profits. In addition to considerably reducing legal costs, the team has facilitated financial gain for the company through litigations and lobbying. One instance of successful governmental lobbying was in reference to a law obliging food retailers to keep a food specimen for 72 hours or face penalties. The legal team held meetings with the government ministry responsible, successfully convincing them to exclude McDonald’s from the obligation. In another instance of their legal actions and lobbying activities, the team succeeded in restarting operations at one of its restaurants after it was closed by the municipality authorities.