Finance Law

Finance Law is one of GSG Law’s main fields of activity.

Our Finance Law Team, which specialises in Capital Markets and Exchange and Banking Law, provides legal consultancy services to financial organisations in all operational steps, starting from the beginning of the establishment process, which includes ensuring full alignment with regulations during operations. Further, our Team also provides legal consultancy in relation to financial operations to organisations which are not in the financial sector.

Our client portfolio, which consists of sector leaders operating in the finance industry, includes: national and foreign commercial banks, investment banks, financing companies, payment and electronic money institutions, leasing companies, factoring companies, intermediaries, portfolio management companies, mutual fund and investment companies, asset management companies, pension companies, and insurance and reassurance companies.

Also, our clients who are not operating in the finance sector are usually companies that issued or plan to issue public offerings or capital market instruments, invest in financial instruments or plan to engage in financial operations.

Our expert lawyers provide training services to sector associations, institutions and companies about financial law to inform employees based on their needs, increase organisational awareness about sustaining compliance with regulations and enrich organisational esteem.

Our services

Our Consultancy Services Related to Asset Management
Our Consultancy Services Related to Capital Markets Legislation
Our Consultancy Services Related to Financial Operations and Transactions
Our Consultancy Services Related to the Establishment and Operational Licenses of Financial Institutions
Our Consultancy Services Related to Compliance with the Personal Data Protection Legislation
Our Consultancy Services Related to Foreign Exchange Law
Our Consultancy Services Related to Adapting to Turkish Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) Legislation

Our Consultancy Services Related to Asset Management

Our Finance Law Team has a wide range of technical knowledge about and experience with asset and wealth management. Our team provides consultancy services to help determine the most suitable investment platform taking into account our clients’ investment and business strategies, and offers legal support for the actualisation and implementation of ideal structures.

In this context, our expert lawyers provide consultancy services to our clients for acquiring establishment and operational licenses of the investment platforms listed below, and regarding complying with regulations during the operations of these platforms:

Portfolio Management Companies
Private Equity Investment Funds
Real Estate Mutual Funds
Private Equity Investment Companies
Real Estate Investment Companies
Infrastructure Real Estate Investment Companies
Securities Investment Funds
Pension Funds

In relation to the establishment and issuing processes of investment funds, our Finance Team provides legal support for the preparation of fund documents (fund charters, offering documents and disclosure forms), preparation of fund agreements between investors, founders and fund managers and for the preparation of other related legal documents.

In addition to these services, before licensing processes begin, our expert lawyers prepare detailed documents about relevant platforms for our clients to ensure that they are informed about all the legal requirements of the platform they are planning to establish and to prevent them from experiencing any unforeseen obligations during the licensing process.

As Turkey’s leading law firm in this field, our Team not only provides legal support for our clients to ensure they set up efficient management structures in light of Turkish legislation, but also considers foreign legislation, and by doing so, contribute to the introduction of the best global market practices to Turkish markets.

Our Consultancy Services Related to Capital Markets Legislation

Our Finance Law Team provides legal consultancy to organisations that are subject to capital markets law as a result of their businesses and operations being listed in capital markets legislation (e.g. publicly held companies, capital markets issuing companies like debt instruments) about their obligations arising from this legislation.

In this context, our lawyers provide legal consultancy and support for the preparation of legal documents about a wide range of topics including: preparing for public offerings and issuing bonds, structured debt instruments or similar capital markets instruments; corporate governance principles; public disclosure requirements; squeeze outs, delisting, public partnership recalls by proxy; and offering stock purchasing options to employees.

Our Consultancy Services Related to Financial Operations and Transactions

Our Finance Law Team provides legal support, assessing our clients’ ongoing or planned operations that fall under the scope of the Capital Markets Board of Turkey’s (“CMB”) and the Banking Regulation and Supervisory Agency’s (“BRSA”) legislation.

Our team frequently provides consultancy to analyse whether a company’s operations would be considered to be “payment services”, “leasing”, “factoring”, “financing/credit”, “portfolio management”, “investment consultancy”, “intermediation”, or other similar operations that require licensing in relation to a client’s business plans.

In this context, our Team provides legal analysis of operations to determine whether they are subject to CMB and BRSA legislation, and if so, additional consultancy regarding licensing and other legal obligations.

Our Consultancy Services Related to the Establishment and Operational Licenses of Financial Institutions

Our Finance Law Team provides legal consultancy services to institutions which are subject to BRSA legislation regarding all the legal actions that need to be taken in accordance with this legislation when acquiring establishment and activity permissions, when changing the nature of operations, and during transitional processes and transition. In this context, our experts operate shoulder to shoulder with the types of clients listed below during all BRSA-related processes, which includes preparation and revision of application files:

Banks
Payment Institutions
Electronic Money Institutions
Leasing Companies
Factoring Companies
Financing Companies
Asset Management Companies

In addition to our services listed above, prior to the start of the licensing process our Team also provides detailed documents about related institutions to ensure our clients are informed about all the legal requirements for the institutions that they are planning to establish and to prevent them from experiencing any unforeseen obligations during the licensing process.

In this context, our team provides legal support to our clients in relation to the preparation of financial service contracts or reviewing and if necessary revision of the existing contracts, to ensure compliance with the relevant legislation.

Our Consultancy Services Related to Compliance with the Personal Data Protection Legislation

The sector expertise of our Finance Law Team contributes significantly in the process of determining our clients' obligations to comply with personal data protection legislation and update processes accordingly. In this context, our Team provides legal support to institutions operating in the finance sector, without disregarding the relevant legislation they are subject to (CMB, BRSA or insurance legislation) during the harmonisation process.

Our expert team offers the services below for our clients operating in the financial sector:

preparation of personal data processing inventory
identification of deficiencies by performing process-based compliance analysis and suggesting action plans
preparation of necessary documents such as explicit consent documents, disclosure statements, personal data protection and privacy policies, personal data retention and destruction policies and other required documents.

Our Team not only considers Turkish law, but also takes applications and jurisprudence in the finance sector in relation to European Union Law into account, while providing legal services related to compliance with personal data protection legislation.

Our Consultancy Services Related to Foreign Exchange Law

Our Finance Law Team offers foreign exchange law counselling services regarding Law No. 1567 on Protection of Turkish Currency Value, Decree No. 32 on Protection of Turkish Currency Value, and other related legislation.

In this context, our expert Team offers legal consultancy services regarding complying with obligations (e.g. notifications) and restrictions for transactions that require money transfers to and/or from Turkey and for foreign exchange transactions (e.g. cross-border credit transactions, capital transfers, export and import transactions), especially to multinational corporations and persons engaged in cross-border operations.

Further, our team of lawyers provides legal support by closely following the changes in foreign exchange legislation and informing our clients about those changes, ensuring that our clients carry out their ongoing transactions in compliance with foreign exchange legislation.

Our Consultancy Services Related to Adapting to Turkish Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) Legislation

Our Finance Law Team provides consultancy services to banks, insurance and pension companies, institutions other than banks who have the authority to issue bank cards or credit cards, capital market institutions, financial leasing companies, payment and electronic money companies, and other institutions offering financial services which are identified as "obliged party" under Law No. 5549 on Prevention of Laundering Proceeds of Crime and related secondary legislation, in relation to their liabilities such as identifying and making notifications regarding suspicious transactions, maintenance and submission, and monitoring customer situations and transactions under this legislation.