For almost every industry, sustainability involves adopting environmentally and socially responsible practices throughout a company's operations, from sourcing and production to sales and customer engagement. This includes reducing carbon emissions, promoting fair labor practices, supporting the product lifecycle, leveraging blockchain and digital systems, ensuring supply chain transparency, and maintaining ethical governance standards. Therefore, environmental sustainability policies need to be integrated into internal company rules, and, in particular, stakeholders in every sector need to take more responsibility for ESG practices.

Bagzibagli, Erdem & Sahin has advised Enqura Bilgi Teknolojileri on its USD 2.9 million investment round from Eksim Ventures, Hedef Portfoy Startup Burada GSYF, Lima Ventures, Doga Girisim, Echo Cagri Merkezi, Sistem Global, and private investors. 

One of the important advantages of arbitration proceedings is that the parties can appoint co-arbitrators. Thus, the parties can ensure that those whose impartiality, knowledge and fairness they trust will decide on their dispute. This opportunity raises the question of who the party-appointed arbitrators should be and the criteria by which the parties should appoint the party-appointed arbitrators. 

The European Commission (“Commission") has been in the process of what can be called a reform of secondary legislation for the last few years. The Commission has issued several legislative developments that have reformed European competition law. After a long period of work, in May 2022, The Commission launched the new VBER with extensive changes. This year, the Commission made further changes on the EU Merger Regulation, extended the EU Motor Vehicle Block Exemption Regulation (MVBER), introduced the new EU Revised Horizontal Block Exemption Regulation, introduced Guidelines on Exclusionary Abuses, and announced public consultation under Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Baker McKenzie’s Turkish affiliate Esin Attorney Partnership has advised Denizbank on its USD 109 million loan from the EBRD. Reportedly, Clifford Chance and its Turkish affiliate Ciftci Attorney Partnership advised the EBRD.

M&A in the CEE region has been a captivating theater of evolving trends and geopolitical dynamics of late. Schoenherr Partner Markus Piuk shares his insights on the current market trends and delves into the influence of the US-China relationship, the status of Russian-based transactions, the resilience of the CEE M&A market, and the prospects of industry consolidation and growth.

Aksan has advised APY Ventures on its new investment in Poliark.

Paksoy has advised Turkish baby goods retailer Ebebek Magazacilik on its TRY 1.86 billion IPO.

On 21 October 2022, the Banking Regulatory and Supervisory Authority (“BRSA”) published BRSA Decision No. 10389 (“Tightening Decision”) to tighten the restrictions set forth under the BRSA Decision No. 10250 dated 24 June 2022 (“Restriction Decision”), which introduced Turkish lira borrowing restrictions for non-financial institutions that are subject to independent audit and BRSA Decision No. 10265 dated 7 July 2022 (“Decision No. 10265” and together with Tightening Decision and Restriction Decision, “Decisions”), which in turn aims to clarify and ensure the effective application of the Restriction Decision.

Former Baker McKenzie Turkish affiliate Esin Attorney Partnership Associate Nihat Aral has joined Alcon as a Head of Legal & Compliance in Turkiye.

Baker McKenzie Turkish affiliate Esin Attorney Partnership, working with Hogan Lovells, has advised the US International Development Finance Corporation on a USD 100 million term loan facility for Sekerbank.

Former Karsan Automotive Head of Legal Ibrahim Onur Baysal has joined Erdem & Erdem as a Partner and Head of the firm's Capital Markets practice.

In its decision dated 01.06.2023 and numbered 2022/120 E. 2023/107 K., published in the Official Gazette dated 01.08.2023 and numbered 32266, Turkish Constitutional Court ["Court"] decided to annul the provisions regarding the deferment of the announcement of the verdict ["DAV"] institution regulated in paragraphs 5 to 14 of Article 231 of the Turkish Code of Criminal Procedure ["TCCP"] No. 5271.

The Aksan Law Firm has advised Simya VC on successfully concluding an investment round in Turkish start-up Juphy.

The French antitrust authority – Autorite de la Concurrence (Autorite) – has recently finalized a significant investigation against Electricite de France (EDF) and reached a notable decision that is expected to shape business models in electricity markets. Examining the case, here are its potential impacts and replicability on the Turkish electricity market.

Turkey’s Competition Board (the “Board”) rendered two significant decisions last year concerning online sales restrictions that provide a view forward for many undertakings. In its decisions, the Board scrutinised the commitment packages offered by BSH and Arcelik, two of the major small and large household appliances manufacturers in Turkey. The investigations against the companies (the “Investigations”) concerned whether Arcelik and/or BSH violated Article 4 of Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition (“Law No. 4054”) by preventing their authorised resellers from selling online and/or interfering with resellers’ resale prices. The Board accepted the commitment packages, which Arcelik and BSH revised after an initial review of the Board, and thus closed the Investigations with respect to the online sales restrictions contemplated by Arcelik and BSH.

Turunc has advised the Future Impact Fund on its investment in app and game developer and publisher Mega Fortuna, in a USD 2.3 million seed funding round that included APY Ventures. Dentons Turkish affiliate Balcioglu Selcuk Ardiyok Keki reportedly advised APY Ventures.

The "green charging stations" have been introduced with the Regulation Amending the Regulation on Charging Services published in the Official Gazette dated 17.08.2023. Pursuant to the amendment, stations that have a Renewable Energy Resource Guarantee Certificate ["YEK-G Certificate"], an electronic document that providing evidence that all of the electricity supplied to the consumer per 1 MWh of electricity generated is generated from renewable energy sources, will now be defined as green charging stations.