The articles of the Turkish Code of Obligations No.6098 (‘’TCO’’) had been postponed for workplaces lease agreements. It will be entering into force on July 1,2020 for office leases. The articles of the TCO will come into effect if not postponed again. This is known to cause considerable effects to the ongoing office lease agreements.

BTS & Partners has advised the Growth Circuit venture capital firm on an unspecified investment in Invidyo — a developer of child monitoring devices that rely on artificial intelligence.

After rounds of revisions and failed attempts of enactment over a span of several years, the proposal for an amendment to the Law No. 4054 on Protection of Competition (“Law no. 4054”) (“Amendment Proposal”) has finally been approved by the Turkish parliament, namely the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, yesterday.

BTS & Partners has advised the shareholders of mobile payment and bank transfer service provider Payguru on the sale of 100% of its shares to Tpay Mobile. Norton Rose Fulbright London and the Inal Kama Attorney Partnership advised Tpay Mobile on the deal.

Allen & Overy and Gedik & Eraksoy have advised Standard Chartered Bank and Bank of America as arrangers of an ESG-linked syndicated loan facility for Turkey’s Garanti BBVA.

Fintech is described by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) as “technology-enabled innovation in financial services that could result in new business models, applications, processes or products with an associated material effect on the provision of financial services”. Fintech companies of all sort, have so far triggered a remarkable transformation in the provision of financial services. The impacts of this ongoing transformation on market structure is inevitable, as these companies are growing as new market players.

White & Case and its associated Turkish firm, GKC Partners, have advised interactive entertainment company Zynga Inc. on its USD 1.8 billion acquisition of Istanbul-based Peak Oyun Yazilim ve Pazarlama, A.S. Baker McKenzie, working with its Turkish affiliate, the Esin Attorney Partnership, advised Peak on the transaction, which is expected to close in the third quarter of 2020.

BTS & Partners has advised Turkish logistics company Yolda and its founders on their receipt of an investment of USD 835,000 from Collective Spark, an investment fund focusing on tech companies, and various angel investors. Ilhanli Baser advised Collective Spark on the investment.

Recently, the spread of COVID-19 has been classified as a “pandemic” by the World Health Organization. With the global contagion of the epidemic, rumors have appeared regarding the development of new medicines and vaccines in Turkey, as everywhere else, and this situation has caused much misleading news and information to be published by the media and on the Internet.

The coronavirus pandemic has produced material effects on economy and triggered a global economic crisis leading to major changes in commercial activities. Significant part of the world population has largely changed their spending habits that almost stopped the functioning of multiple industries while demand for several others such as health equipment, food products and cleaning materials upsurged. Towering demand for these products caught companies unprepared and led to a supply crisis.

Mehtap Payne has joined Turkey's Guden Law Firm as its new Senior Legal Counsel and Head of Maritime Law.

Turkish Competition Authority (TCA) revoked the individual exemption granted in 2016 to BKM Express, the joint digital wallet service of 13 leading banks, operated by The Interbank Card Center (BKM). TCA also mandated the termination of this activity in 60 days after declaration of reasoned decision. This is a landmark antitrust intervention of Turkish antitrust watchdog, addressing the rising competition concerns in the newly emerging fintech markets in order to ensure a competitive market structure and pave the way for innovative fintech startups to enter the market and operate effectively.

Commitment is a procedural innovation and a way of settlement in competition law where undertakings under investigation, propose a set of behaviors (or structural remedies) addressing the competition concerns raised by antitrust authority. In return, the authority terminates the ongoing investigation in early stages and makes the proposed commitments binding on the undertaking, provided that the commitments are satisfactory in resolving the competition concerns in that specific case. Undertakings are not forced to acknowledge the violation and the undergoing probe is closed with no fine within this mechanism. Both parties, the Authority and the undertakings gain significant procedural efficiency in total.

The way people communicate is constantly under transformation following technological advances. Business communication is not away from this trend as cutting edge-technologies provide instant communication tools that brings efficiency and convenience in daily communication of employees. Not surprisingly, legal authorities in general and antitrust authorities in particular, are also keeping tabs on this transformation in order to preserve the efficiency of their investigative practices and evidence search during handling their cases.

“The Turkish Government acted well and used the experience of other countries to fight the battle with COVID-19,” says Ersin Nazali, Managing Partner of Nazali Tax & Legal in Istanbul. “The situation was well prepared-for, which ultimately led to a lower number of infected people. Soon, we expect to get back to normal life.”

The economic and social impacts of the new coronavirus ("COVID 19"), which emerged in Wuhan-China in December/2019, occur at an unprecedented level comparing to crises experienced before. Within this scope, as a precaution for prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey, the time limits in legal proceedings are suspended until April 30, 2020. The General Assembly of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (“TBMM”) enacted this measure through the Amendments to Certain Laws (“Law No. 7226“) on March 25, 2020. Also on April 30, 2020 the President of the Turkish Republic issued the “The Degree to Extend the Suspension Period to Prevent the Loss of Legal Rights” (“Decree”) and under the Decree, the suspension of time limits in legal proceedings has been extended again from April 30, 2020 to June 15, 2020.

In order to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, the Republic of Turkey’s Ministry of Commerce has taken some measures on how companies should organize their board meetings. Within the scope of these measures, the ordinary general meetings of joint stock and limited companies, which were previously invited to the meeting in accordance with the Turkish Commercial Code numbered 6102 (“TCC”) and the company agreement, were cancelled with a decision to be taken by the governing bodies, without waiting for the general meeting to be held.

Turkey's Balcioglu Selcuk Ardiyok Keki Attorney Partnership has confirmed that Partner Sahin Ardiyok has replaced departed Partner Ozgur Akman on the firm's letter-head, conveniently allowing the firm to continue to use its traditional BASEAK acronym without change.