Employment

We advise our clients on the full range of both contentious and non-contentious aspects of employment law. Our areas of expertise include managing employment relations, recruitment and termination of employment, day-to-day HR issues, and employment contracts and policies. We also offer support in relation to employment claims in Turkish Labour Courts.

Employment litigation has its own dynamics in Turkey. With our strong litigation team, we help clients strategize cases in the most efficient and result oriented manner. We have extensive experience including complex discrimination cases, whistleblowing, constructive and unfair dismissal, and high value breach of contract claims. We advise on boardroom disputes and interim injunctions. We also regularly settle disputes by means of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), such as mediation.

Employment related settlements in Turkey have particular legal aspects, such as minimum thresholds for compensations in specific claims, in which we assist our clients in negotiations with their employees.

We advise our clients on financial packages (including garden leave/payment in lieu of salary and benefits, compensation and ex gratia payments, shares, bonuses, pensions, outplacement services and other benefits); post termination restrictions and confidentiality obligations; tax implications and indemnities; agreed reference and announcement of departure.

We also advise on:

• Unapproved options
• Company share option plans (CSOP)
• Growth shares
• Tax efficient structuring for employees and employers
• Identifying key performance drivers and linking reward to performance
• Modelling dilution and setting appropriate pay out levels
• Legal and regulatory requirements (corporate, employment and securities laws)
• Effective communication of incentives
• incentive deal negotiation by employees
• Aligning incentives with remuneration strategy.

We work with our clients to put in place effective and legally binding post-termination restrictions in employment contracts to protect our clients’ customers, suppliers, key employees, confidential information, and trade secrets. We also help to enforce restrictive covenants and advise on highly tactical and complex legal issues that often arise, including injunctions and criminal applications.