Zihni Bilgehan

What is ESG: Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance As climate change becomes an ever-growing concern, the promotion of the circular economy intensifies, and the focus on companies’ internal practices sharpens, the need for adopting less environmentally damaging operations has become more crucial than ever. This means that not only should companies aim to minimize their…

Amendments to the Ports Regulation (“Regulation”) were published in the Official Gazette and entered into force on 14 April 2023. The amendments were introduced with the general intention of keeping up with technological developments, supporting maritime trade, protecting safety of life and the environment and eliminating practical problems. Some important amendments will be highlighted below.…

Marine pollution fines are updated annually, and our client alert published in December 2022 had set out the fines updated for 2023. In a recent interim amendment, the following two further updates were introduced.

On 6 February 2023, the cities of Gaziantep and Kahramanmaraş were struck by two major earthquakes measuring 7.7 and 7.6 on the richter scale, 9 hours apart which caused widespread destruction in south eastern Turkey. Given the devastation caused, a state of emergency was declared in the affected cities, namely Adana, Adıyaman, Diyarbakır, Gaziantep, Hatay,…

Pursuant to Article 20 of the Turkish Environmental Code no. 2872 (“Code”), fines are imposed on vessels for causing pollution in Turkish waters through discharge of petroleum products, dirty ballast, garbage and sewage into the sea. Different from the major increase imposed in December 2018, this is merely an adjustment of the fines for inflation that…

“Only Ten Years Left to Fix Climate Emergency” is the summary of the World Economic Forum Press Release on 20th February 2020. Why should we care about the WEF’s 2020 Global Risks Report? The answer is simple: if we do not act now, it will be inevitable to leave an uninhabitable planet to the next generations.…

The Regulation on Supporting the Transfer of Cargo Carried by Road to Carriage By Sea (the “Regulation”) entered into force as of 9 August 2022. The Regulation aims to increase the volume of cargo carried by sea in combined transportation, increase the capacity of maritime transportation between Turkish ports and the ports of other countries and…

Turkey has amended its Environmental Code with a new law published in the Official Gazette on 15 June 2022. The amendments introduces stricter measures for marine pollution and also brings long awaited clarity to penalties applicable in case of non-compliance with IMO 2020 sulphur limits. The amendments also provide for harsher fines for pollution inside…

Pursuant to the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Code No. 2004 (“Code”), the sale of the debtor’s attached assets, is carried out by the bailiff’s office via an auction, upon the request of the debtor or creditor. Provided that the creditor or the debtor requests the sale of the attached assets within 1 year from the date…

The Turkish government has successfully amended the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code with a new law passed on 12 May 2022 (“the New Law”). With the amendments, perpetrators committing certain crimes will be dished out harsher sentences if the said crime is committed against a woman. These crimes : (i) Murder with intent (Article…

Red flags of the environmental crisis point to the urgent need for global action against multilateral climate change. In return, the 2016 Paris Agreement, which is the first global and legally binding agreement for climate crisis, calls on all nations to play an active role in the process of limiting global warming. This call refers…

A new Presidential Decree, which was published in the Official Gazette on 28 June 2022, has raised the percentage of the state share to be received from the monthly gross revenue of the public and private pilotage and towage service providers. The below table indicates the raised percentage of the state share, which was previously…