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

The past year has been particularly challenging from a legal and compliance perspective.

Many international companies were heavily impacted by the sanctions imposed on Russia and either had to exit or limit their presence in the Russian market. These developments also affected the Turkish market. From a compliance viewpoint, Türkiye’s relationship with Ukraine and The Russia Federation raised a lot of questions about Turkish subsidiaries of international companies interacting with Russian subsidiaries and or Russian third-party companies.

This raised further questions about the enforceability of sanctions to Turkish subsidiaries of international companies, since it was difficult to continue a business relationship with Russia. Due to the strict and wide scope of these sanctions, the commercial relationship between Russian companies and Turkish subsidiaries of international companies had to be limited or ended with Russian companies.

Additionally, the current economic conditions and inflation in Türkiye created various legal questions on their impact to existing commercial relationships. These questions also emphasised the importance of having miscellaneous clauses – such as severability clauses – under existing agreements.

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

The productivity of legal departments will be placed under heavy scrutiny due to the world’s economic atmosphere. In-house lawyers might be forced to provide solid evidence of their necessity and value to prevent their functions from being outsourced to other law firms.

As a support function which has no profit and loss liability, in-house lawyers are always under such pressure – this will only increase in the coming years.

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?

A new documentation program was developed to store our template agreements and all agreed amendments with our customers. This program also includes an electronic signature option. We contributed to the creation of this program by providing clarification on our needs as a legal department. Consequently, hard copy documentation processes have been eliminated.