What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?

Samsung Electronics Türkiye Production Company is the first smartphone manufacturing investment after 11 years. It was a meaningful experience and a great challenge from the beginning of the establishment of one of the world’s leading brands.

As an in-house lawyer, the main point of providing a good quality service is by touching every different function regardless of whether there is an expectation from other departments. Especially in the startup process, there were lots of difficulties during the factory establishment process, such as licenses, corporate documentation, legal procedures, contract negotiation and finalisation, employment law support and so on. On the other hand, global policies, local law comparison and adaptation, and compliance process management system establishment require sensitive and long work. Therefore, the number one challenge was definitely the startup process.

We were able to handle all challenges we encountered, and we have brought the production factory of a world brand to our country.

In your opinion, what areas should in-house lawyers focus on over the next few years to prove value to their organisations in Türkiye?

I believe that in-house lawyers should spend their time not only in the office of the legal department but mainly integrating themselves into the business units they serve to understand the problems in every aspect. With this method, close communication and collaboration will be provided. Therefore, a proactive approach and quick solution will also be more critical in legal services.

In terms of business areas, I recommend lots of training on compliance. Recently, studies on compliance have been rising trends in Turkey and the world. Although many different aspects of compliance exist, project-based works such as legislation adaptation, data privacy, personal data protection law, and competition law, especially for lawyers, come to the fore.

In addition, ethical working principles and policies such as anti-corruption and bribery are also important in raising awareness among company employees.

On the other hand, the importance of labour law expertness and HR guidance, especially for production companies, will always maintain its validity.

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?

I have always seen the benefit of creating small internal units by dividing work according to a lawyer’s expertise. Since the law has many different areas that require experience and expertise, we have been working on progressing by sharing business within the legal team. This approach helps the lawyers in the team to specialise in improving themselves by gaining experience on specific issues and doing work faster and more quality way. I always adopted this way of working in my teams and provided quality service without increasing costs. We have concluded the two elegant legal problems in the establishment stage without cost and thus appropriately completed.