How to Sue a Turkish Company from Abroad

Suing a Turkish company from abroad requires a Turkish court with jurisdiction, a claimant able to act through the correct representative, and a pleading supported by the documents for the particular claim. Foreign residence does not replace those requirements. A party with litigation capacity may pursue a case through an appointed representative, while a legal entity acts through its authorised organs (6100 sayılı Hukuk Muhakemeleri Kanunu m.52, m.71, m.114; 5718 sayılı Milletlerarası Özel Hukuk ve Usul Hukuku Hakkında Kanun m.40).

Begin with the result you need: payment, performance of an obligation, compensation, or a corporate remedy. An unpaid invoice, a dispute over an obligation to transfer shares and an application to challenge a company resolution call for different analysis. This guide addresses preparation for a commercial action. Ordinary payment enforcement is explained in debt collection in Turkey; statutory corporate remedies are explained in shareholder disputes in Turkey.

1. Suing a Turkish Company: Identify the Claimant and Defendant

Suing a Turkish company starts with identifying the legal entities involved in the transaction. The pleading must identify the parties and their addresses, the facts, the evidence for each fact, the legal grounds and the relief requested. If several group companies appear in the correspondence, prepare a record showing which entity signed, performed and allegedly breached the obligation (6100 sayılı Hukuk Muhakemeleri Kanunu m.119).

Keep the claimant’s corporate documents separate from the evidence against the defendant. The first set addresses whether the foreign company exists, who may act for it and who can appoint counsel. The second set addresses the transaction and the alleged breach. A foreign legal entity’s capacity is governed by the law of the administrative centre in its constitutive documents; Turkish law may apply where its actual administrative centre is in Turkey (5718 sayılı Milletlerarası Özel Hukuk ve Usul Hukuku Hakkında Kanun m.9/4).

A dispute with a company also needs a separate assessment before a claim is made against its director. Evidence that a director signed correspondence for the company does not by itself identify an independent personal cause of action. The statutory grounds and claimant distinctions are covered in director liability in Turkey.

2. Suing a Turkish Company: Choose the Court and Review the Contract

Suing a Turkish company requires both subject-matter and territorial jurisdiction to be checked. Commercial actions include disputes concerning both parties’ commercial enterprises and the categories listed by the Commercial Code. Unless another provision applies, the commercial court of first instance hears commercial cases regardless of value (6102 sayılı Türk Ticaret Kanunu m.4, m.5).

The international jurisdiction of Turkish courts follows domestic territorial-jurisdiction rules. The general forum is the defendant’s domicile when the action is filed; an action arising from a contract may also be brought where that contract is to be performed. A claim arising from a branch’s transactions may additionally be brought where that branch is located (5718 sayılı Milletlerarası Özel Hukuk ve Usul Hukuku Hakkında Kanun m.40; 6100 sayılı Hukuk Muhakemeleri Kanunu m.6, m.10, m.14/1).

These connecting factors should be checked against the actual dispute. A shareholder dispute may involve an exclusive forum, and a special statute may identify a particular court. The presence of a Turkish company is therefore not a sufficient reason to select any Turkish commercial court.

Read the contract’s dispute clause before preparing the pleading. Merchants and public legal entities may designate courts within the conditions of the Civil Procedure Code, while agreements choosing a foreign state’s courts are governed by the separate foreign-element rule. An arbitration clause also needs its own assessment (6100 sayılı Hukuk Muhakemeleri Kanunu m.17-18; 5718 sayılı Milletlerarası Özel Hukuk ve Usul Hukuku Hakkında Kanun m.47).

The governing-law clause addresses a different question. For contractual obligations with a foreign element, the parties may choose the substantive law under Article 24; that choice does not by itself designate the court. The distinctions are explained in governing law and jurisdiction in Turkish commercial contracts (5718 sayılı Milletlerarası Özel Hukuk ve Usul Hukuku Hakkında Kanun m.24).

3. Suing a Turkish Company: Prepare a Claim and Evidence File

Suing a Turkish company requires a clear connection between each alleged fact and its supporting evidence. The general burden of proof lies with the party deriving a favourable legal consequence from the asserted fact, unless a special rule applies. Written records, electronic data and other information carriers can qualify as documents; that classification does not make every email conclusive proof of its contents (6100 sayılı Hukuk Muhakemeleri Kanunu m.190, m.199).

Prepare the file by issue rather than by the order in which documents were received:

Issue to establish	Records to collect for assessment
Parties and agreed obligations	Executed contract, schedules, incorporated terms, order confirmations
Performance by the claimant	Delivery records, acceptance documents, project reports, payment records
Alleged breach	Rejection or termination notices, correspondence, records of missing performance
Amount or other relief	Itemised calculation and the documents supporting each component
Forum and applicable law	Governing-law, jurisdiction and arbitration clauses, relevant place-of-performance records
Corporate representation	Constitutive documents and records identifying the authorised organ or signatory

The table is a preparation checklist, not a statement that every claim requires the same documents. The pleading must explain the facts and identify the evidence for each of them. A large collection of attachments cannot substitute for that explanation (6100 sayılı Hukuk Muhakemeleri Kanunu m.119/1-e-f).

For a share transaction, distinguish the alleged failure to perform the purchase agreement from the statutory steps needed to transfer the shares. The closing documents differ between joint-stock and limited companies, as described in share purchase agreements in Turkey.

4. Suing a Turkish Company: Translation and Authentication

Suing a Turkish company with foreign-language evidence requires translations to accompany the documents relied on. The court may request an official translation on its own initiative or at the other party’s request. That is the translation rule; it should not be expanded into a claim that every foreign-language attachment automatically needs the same certification process (6100 sayılı Hukuk Muhakemeleri Kanunu m.223).

Foreign public documents have a separate authentication requirement. Their status as public documents in Turkey depends on approval by the competent authority of the issuing state or the relevant Turkish consular authority, with applicable international treaties reserved. Identify the issuing country and document type before deciding which authentication route applies (6100 sayılı Hukuk Muhakemeleri Kanunu m.224).

Keep the original record, its authentication and its translation together. A translation does not itself answer who issued the document or whether the person signing for the foreign company had authority. Preparation should address those questions individually rather than treating one certified page as proof of the entire chain.

5. Suing a Turkish Company: Power of Attorney from Abroad

Suing a Turkish company through counsel requires a duly prepared power of attorney in the case file. The lawyer must submit the notarised original or a lawyer-certified copy conforming to that original. The authority to appoint the lawyer should also be supported by the foreign company’s representation documents (6100 sayılı Hukuk Muhakemeleri Kanunu m.52, m.76).

Special authority matters if the planned conduct includes settlement, arbitration or other acts listed by the statute. A general authorisation to conduct litigation does not dispense with those express-authority requirements. Decide which acts should be authorised before the instrument is executed abroad, rather than discovering during negotiations that an intended settlement is outside its wording (6100 sayılı Hukuk Muhakemeleri Kanunu m.74).

The document’s foreign execution and use in Turkey require their own checks. The power of attorney from abroad guide addresses preparation routes. Representation can allow filing and case management from abroad; it does not establish that the court can never require a particular person’s participation in the proceedings.

6. Suing a Turkish Company: Mediation and Foreign-Claimant Security

Suing a Turkish company for a listed commercial monetary claim requires a pre-action mediation application. The statutory list covers receivable, compensation, annulment of objection, negative declaratory and restitution actions whose subject is a sum of money. The requested relief must be analysed before deciding that the condition applies (6102 sayılı Türk Ticaret Kanunu m.5/A/1).

A claim to change a corporate legal position should not automatically be treated as a payment claim. Equally, adding a payment demand to a corporate dispute requires a separate assessment of that demand. Describe the intended relief precisely when preparing the mediation and litigation plan.

Foreign individuals and legal entities bringing or joining a Turkish action are subject to court-determined security for litigation expenses and the opposing party’s loss. The court grants an exemption on the basis of reciprocity. Article 48 specifies no uniform percentage, so a generic fixed deposit should not be presented as the statutory requirement (5718 sayılı Milletlerarası Özel Hukuk ve Usul Hukuku Hakkında Kanun m.48).

Security, representation and the advance for expenses are distinct procedural matters. The Civil Procedure Code includes compliance with a security order, proper representation and payment of the expense advance among the conditions of an action. A litigation budget should therefore separate these items from any fee agreed with counsel (6100 sayılı Hukuk Muhakemeleri Kanunu m.114).

7. Suing a Turkish Company: Filing and Urgent Protection

Suing a Turkish company requires the pleading to state an explicit request for relief. Prepare the claim in the following order so the documents and requested result remain aligned (6100 sayılı Hukuk Muhakemeleri Kanunu m.119):

1. Identify the parties, the disputed obligation and the result sought.
2. Check court jurisdiction, the dispute clause and the governing law.
3. Establish the foreign claimant’s capacity and representation chain.
4. Match each alleged fact to evidence and prepare the required translations.
5. Address any pre-action mediation requirement and security exemption evidence.
6. Prepare the pleading and assess whether urgent provisional protection is needed.

An interim injunction is available concerning the subject of the dispute where a change could substantially obstruct or prevent obtaining the right, or delay could cause serious harm. The application must identify the ground and type of protection and provide approximate proof of the merits. An injunction application is therefore a separate evidential task, not an automatic addition to every foreign claimant’s lawsuit (6100 sayılı Hukuk Muhakemeleri Kanunu m.389, m.390).

Where the concern is an unpaid money claim and assets being removed, examine the provisional-attachment route described in the debt collection guide. Where the claimant already holds a foreign judgment, examine enforcement authorisation instead of assuming that the original contract must be litigated again. The UAE judgment enforcement guide illustrates that distinct route; judgments from other countries require their own conditions to be checked (5718 sayılı Milletlerarası Özel Hukuk ve Usul Hukuku Hakkında Kanun m.50, m.54).