Legislation
Treaties
Is your country party to any bilateral or multilateral treaties for the reciprocal recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments? What is the country’s approach to entering into these treaties, and what, if any, amendments or reservations has your country made to such treaties?
Except for those concerning family law, Türkiye is not a signatory to multilateral treaties for the reciprocal recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. However, Türkiye…
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A final Turkish judgment has held that a trademark owner cannot be charged for the storage of counterfeit goods after those goods have been seized in criminal proceedings.
Background
The case concerned 264,740 units of counterfeit Colgate toothpaste, weighing approximately 27.7 tonnes.
Following the temporary detention of the goods at customs, a criminal complaint was filed on behalf of Colgate-Palmolive Company. The Criminal Court ordered their seizure, and the destruction…
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Trade mark squatting has unfortunately become increasingly common in Türkiye in recent years. Bad-faith applicants often identify trade marks that are registered and genuinely used abroad but have not yet been registered in Türkiye, file applications for those marks in their own names and then attempt to sell the registrations or present themselves as the rightful proprietors of the trade marks. In another common scenario, bad-faith applicants use the registrations they have…
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The Bolar exemption was originally conceived as a limited mechanism enabling generic and biosimilar manufacturers to complete the regulatory steps necessary to enter the market immediately after patent expiry. The EU Pharma Package now seeks to broaden the exemption substantially, both in terms of the activities covered and the parties entitled to rely on it. This development invites a re-examination of Turkiye’s long-standing – and already notably broad – interpretation of…
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With its decision published in the Official Gazette on 17 March 2026, the Constitutional Court brought renewed attention to a significant issue that had long been overlooked in relation to limited liability companies. The Constitutional Court held that requiring a general assembly majority for the exclusion of a shareholder in two-shareholder limited liability companies creates a practical deadlock. Accordingly, the Court annulled, in respect of two-shareholder limited…
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Introduction
Intellectual property law provides for various protection mechanisms aimed at safeguarding creative works; such that, depending on the nature of the product or creative works, it is possible to apply for more than one means of protection simultaneously. In this context, designs that meet the necessary criteria may be protected by both design rights under the Industrial Property Code No. 6769 (“IP Code”) and as work under the Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works…
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The acceleration of digitalization, the widespread adoption of internet-based uses, and the increasing interaction between artificial intelligence (“AI”) systems and copyright-protected content necessitate greater legal certainty regarding the position of rights holders and the development of mechanisms enabling them to effectively exercise their rights. To address this need, the The Proposal Amending the Law No. 5846 on Intellectual and Artistic Works ("Proposal") was…
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Digital advertising has undergone a significant transformation in recent years. Advertisers increasingly rely on data relating to consumers’ online behaviour, interests, and preferences to deliver personalised advertisements, while artificial intelligence technologies are becoming more widely used in the creation of advertising content, the use of digital characters, and interactions with consumers. Although these technological developments have enabled advertisements to…
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Under the Law, the Board has the authority to impose administrative sanctions. It is stipulated that the Board may impose administrative fines for failure to comply with the duty to provide information, obligations relating to data security, failure to comply with decisions issued by the Board, breaches of registration and notification obligations under the Register of Data Controllers, or breaches of the notification obligation regarding standard contracts. In addition to…
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The Law requires data controllers to notify the Board and the relevant data subject as soon as possible upon becoming aware of a data breach. In its Decision No. 2019/19 dated 24 January 2019 (“the Decision”), the Board has clarified the rules to be applied and the procedures to be followed in the event of a data breach.
The Board adopts the GDPR approach regarding the timing of breach notifications and has clarified that the phrase ‘as soon as possible’ in the Law should be…
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With the rapid spread of artificial intelligence and its integration into every aspect of life, it has become imperative to establish a legal framework governing the secure and ethical development, deployment and use of artificial intelligence systems, taking into account the complexity and specific characteristics of this technology.
Aiming not only to promote the safe, transparent and human rights-respecting development of artificial intelligence technologies, but also to…
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Pursuant to Article 16 of the Law, there is an obligation to register with the Data Controllers’ Register (“VERBİS”) for data controllers established in Türkiye that exceed the specified thresholds, as well as for data controllers established abroad that process personal data in Türkiye as data controllers, without being subject to any threshold criteria.
The procedures and principles governing the VERBİS system, which is maintained as a public register, are set out in the…
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