Can you please give us an idea of the sort of work your team has done recently (cases, transactions, projects)?

TCA announced that their future enforcement strategy over labour market will be the issuance of guidelines to reduce the legal uncertainty that employers may face. In 2021, for example, non-solicitation agreement became a hot legal topic in Türkiye for the first time. On April 2021, TCA published in their official website that ex officio launched investigation against 32 companies that are active in digital markets, to determine whether they violated the Law on the Protection of Competition through gentlemen’s agreements in labour markets in Türkiye. TCA stated that such agreements might distort the competitive structure in the labour market of Türkiye due to the decrease in the mobility of labour between undertakings and/or the artificial inability to find the real value of the wages in return for the labour.

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

Throughout my professional life, I have been always eager to cooperate with business function. Contrary to common belief, law and business are not completely different sectors; business decisions have legal consequences. Analysing a problem from a purely legal point of view will produce undesirable results which is contrary to business strategy. In-house lawyers should keep this old saying ‘no risk, no gain’ in a corner of their minds.

How do you feel the pandemic has changed the world of work for in-house counsel and the function of the general counsel?

The pandemic has changed not just in-house counsel’s world but the entire world of work. If this question had been asked during the first months of the pandemic, I would have said that my work/personal life balance had changed dramatically. Working from home made me work almost 18 to 20 hours a day as I was expected to be available to work as long as I am at home. However, as time passed, we started to see some benefits of this change of remote work. For example, it became easier to find good candidates without the limitation of their location. I might even say that distance has lost its meaning.