A maritime lawyer in Turkey is a legal professional who advises and represents shipowners, charterers, cargo interests, bunker suppliers, shipyards, marine insurers and P&I Clubs in disputes, transactions and enforcement matters connected with Turkish ports, Turkish waters and vessels calling at them.
The description is accurate and almost useless. It tells a foreign shipowner nothing about the only question that matters when a vessel is sitting at a Turkish berth with a claim attached to it: what can actually be done, how quickly, and at what cost.
Here is the version that matters. In Turkey, a ship cannot be arrested for an ordinary commercial debt. It can be arrested only for a maritime claim, and the list of maritime claims is closed. Before the arrest can work, the claimant must put up security of 10,000 Special Drawing Rights. Not a fee. Not a formality. A statutory condition. And if the vessel in the port turns out to belong to a company that is merely affiliated with the debtor rather than owned by it, the security has been put up for nothing.
Three facts. Each of them can end a claim before it begins. Most foreign claimants learn all three in the same week, usually the week the vessel sails.
Who should contact a maritime lawyer in Turkey?
Foreign shipowners, charterers, cargo owners, bunker and provisions suppliers, shipyards, freight forwarders, marine insurers, P&I Clubs, yacht buyers and foreign law firms acting as lead counsel should contact a maritime lawyer in Turkey the moment a vessel, cargo, contract or maritime claim acquires a Turkish connection. The connection does not need to be the governing law. It is usually just geography: the ship is here, or it is coming here.
That geography is the whole point. Turkey sits between the Black Sea, the Aegean, the Mediterranean and the Turkish Straits, and tens of thousands of commercial vessels pass through those Straits every year. A charterparty governed by English law, signed in Singapore, breached in Rotterdam, may nevertheless reach its decisive moment in Tuzla, because that is where the hull happens to be on a Tuesday morning. Jurisdiction follows the contract. Leverage follows the vessel.
When does a shipping problem in Turkey stop being commercial and become legal?
A shipping problem becomes a legal matter in Turkey at the moment a remedy acquires a deadline: when the vessel has a departure date, when cargo is about to be released, when a survey has not yet been carried out, or when a limitation period is running. Until then, it is a negotiation. After that, it is a race.
This is where foreign counsel and foreign insurers most often misjudge Turkey. They treat the local lawyer as the last step in a process (the person who files what has already been decided elsewhere) when the local lawyer should have been the first call, because the local rules determine whether there is anything left to file. An opinion that arrives after the vessel has cleared the harbour master is not wrong. It is simply worth nothing.
Which Turkish remedy actually protects a maritime claim while the ship is still in port?
The only interim protection available against a vessel in Turkey is ihtiyati haciz, provisional attachment of the ship, granted by a court under the Turkish Commercial Code No. 6102 (TCC) and enforced through the local execution office. Turkish law does not allow a claimant to obtain a general injunction against a ship or to have it detained by some other route. Article 1353 is explicit on the point: for a maritime claim, only arrest may be ordered, and no interim injunction or other sailing ban may be sought against the vessel.
Oznur & Partners Law Firm is an Istanbul-based firm acting for foreign individuals, companies and institutions in Turkish litigation, enforcement, commercial and investment matters. In maritime work our clients are usually somewhere else (a P&I correspondent in Piraeus, an owner in Hamburg, a trader in Geneva, a shipyard creditor in Izmir) and the vessel is here, and the clock is running.
What does it cost a claimant to get a Turkish ship arrest wrong?
A wrongful arrest in Turkey is an expensive victory: the vessel stops, and the bill starts running in the other direction. Under Article 1363 the owner can ask the court at any stage to raise the claimant’s security by reference to the ship’s daily running costs and lost earnings, and Article 1361 lets the owner sue for wrongful arrest before the very court that granted it. The order is the easy part. Owning its consequences is the real cost.
⚖️ What Does a Maritime Lawyer in Turkey Do?
A maritime lawyer in Turkey secures maritime claims against vessels, defends owners against arrest, litigates cargo and charterparty disputes, advises on ship and yacht transactions, handles marine insurance and P&I recovery, and represents clients before Turkish commercial courts, execution offices, harbour masters and port authorities.
The work divides into three moments, and they are not equally forgiving.
The first moment is preventive: reviewing the bill of lading, checking title before the price is released, structuring the bunker contract so that an unpaid invoice will qualify as a maritime claim. This work is cheap and nobody wants to pay for it.
The second moment is the arrest window. The vessel is in Turkish waters or is expected. The claim exists. The evidence is assembled or it is not. This work is expensive, urgent, and it is where the value of the entire relationship is realised or lost.
The third moment is recovery: litigation, arbitration support, enforcement of a foreign judgment or award. It is slow and it works, but it works better when somebody secured the claim during the second moment.
Foreign clients tend to instruct at the third moment and wish they had instructed at the second. How does a Turkish maritime lawyer actually help a foreign company that has never litigated here? The honest answer is that most of the value is delivered in the first forty-eight hours: identifying the vessel by IMO number rather than by name, deciding whether the claim fits inside Article 1352, working out who owns the hull today rather than who owed the money last year, and telling the client whether the 10,000 SDR security is worth putting up. Everything after that is procedure.
In practice the matters that reach a Turkish maritime desk look like this:
- Ship arrest applications and applications to lift an arrest
- Maritime claim qualification and maritime lien analysis
- Cargo damage, shortage, delay and misdelivery claims
- Charterparty, freight, hire and demurrage disputes
- Unpaid bunker, provisions, spare parts and repair claims
- Marine insurance coverage disputes and subrogated recovery
- Collision, salvage and general average
- Ship sale, purchase, mortgage and registry matters
- Yacht purchase, import, VAT and registration questions
- Seafarer wage, repatriation and injury claims
Ten categories, one common denominator. In every one of them, the question a Turkish lawyer is really answering is not “does my client have a claim” but “is there a hull, an account or a cargo within reach of a Turkish court before the counterparty realises there is a problem”.
⚖️ Why Is Turkey Such an Unforgiving Place to Get Shipping Law Wrong?
Turkey is an unforgiving maritime jurisdiction because its arrest regime is narrow, front-loaded with cost and strictly territorial: only closed-list maritime claims permit arrest, the claimant must put up fixed security of 10,000 SDR, and for foreign flag vessels only the court at the precise place where the ship is lying has jurisdiction.
Each feature is defensible alone. Together they let a well-founded claim, brought a day late or in the wrong courthouse, simply evaporate.
Start with geography, because it is the reason the other two matter. Turkey controls the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, hosts container and bulk terminals from Ambarlı to Mersin, and concentrates ship repair at Tuzla in a way few countries do. Vessels stop here. They stop here whether or not their owners have any commercial relationship with Turkey, and they stop long enough for a court to reach them.
For a creditor, this is an opportunity. For an owner, it is exposure. Maritime advice in Turkey is never generic for that reason.
Which Turkish legal issues most often surprise foreign shipping companies?
The four that surprise foreign companies most are the closed list of maritime claims under Article 1352, the mandatory 10,000 SDR security under Article 1363, the three business day deadline to enforce an arrest order under Article 1364, and the absence of any associated ship remedy in Turkish law. None of these appear in the charterparty. All of them decide whether the charterparty is worth anything in Istanbul.
The framework itself is layered. Book Five of the TCC contains a dedicated body of maritime enforcement provisions, drafted with the 1999 Arrest Convention in front of the draftsmen. Around it sit the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Code No. 2004, the Ports Regulation, cabotage rules, environmental legislation, and the administrative practice of the harbour masters, who are not a court and do not behave like one.
A ship arrest is therefore never only a court filing. It is a court filing, a security lodged with the court, an execution office application, and a conversation with a harbour master, arranged in the right order, inside three business days. Get the order wrong and the paperwork is perfect and the vessel is gone.
⚖️ The Ship Sails Tonight. What Can Actually Be Done Today?
If a vessel is due to leave a Turkish port, a claimant needs four things before the courthouse closes: the ship’s IMO number and current berth, documentary proof that the claim falls within Article 1352, the 10,000 SDR security ready to be lodged, and a Turkish lawyer holding a power of attorney or acting on an undertaking to produce one. Missing any of the four and the arrest does not happen.
This is the H2 that foreign clients read. The rest of this page is for the version of them that has more time.
Take the elements in turn, because each one hides a trap.
Identification. Turkish courts arrest a specific ship, not a fleet and not a name. The petition must state the vessel’s name, IMO number, flag, port of registry and, where applicable, registry number. Where sister ships share a name, and in single-ship-company structures they often do, the IMO number is the only thing standing between an arrest order and wasted security.
Qualification. The petition must say which subparagraph of Article 1352 the claim falls under, and say it plainly. “Unpaid invoices” is not a maritime claim. “Bunkers supplied to the vessel on 3 March, invoice attached, delivery note signed by the master” is. Under Article 1362 the claimant only has to give the court evidence sufficient to form a view (yaklaşık ispat, approximate proof), which is generous about certainty and unforgiving about category.
Security. Ten thousand Special Drawing Rights, converted into Turkish lira on the day of application and lodged in cash, as a bank letter of guarantee or in another form the court accepts. On the IMF’s published rate, 10,000 SDR was worth roughly USD 13,650 in August 2026; the lira figure moves daily. Article 1363 makes the security mandatory. Without it there is no arrest, however strong the claim.
Representation. A notarised and apostilled power of attorney for Turkish proceedings is the clean route. It is also slow. In urgent files the practical path is an initial assessment on scanned documents (charterparty, invoices, delivery notes, master’s receipts, correspondence, vessel schedule) while the apostille process runs in parallel.
Four elements, and the third is the one that stops most claims. It is worth its own section.
Is the vessel still in Turkish waters, or is it already on the departure list?
Our maritime team in Istanbul can tell you within hours whether your claim qualifies for arrest, what the security will cost, and whether the ship in the berth is the right ship.
⚖️ The 10,000 SDR Deposit: What Arresting a Ship in Turkey Costs Before It Works
Under Article 1363 of the Turkish Commercial Code, a creditor seeking arrest of a vessel to secure a maritime claim must provide security of 10,000 Special Drawing Rights, and the only claimants exempt from that requirement are seafarers holding the claims listed in Article 1320(1)(a).
Foreign claimants routinely assume the 10,000 SDR security is a court fee, or a bond posted only after the order is granted, or something a P&I Club letter of undertaking automatically replaces. It is none of those. It is statutory security against the owner’s potential wrongful arrest claim, converted into Turkish lira on the day of filing and lodged in cash, as a bank letter of guarantee or in another form the Turkish court accepts.
The purpose of the arrest security is not revenue. The purpose is wrongful arrest: if the arrest turns out to have been unjustified, the security is there to compensate the owner for the days the vessel sat idle. Article 1363(2) permits the respondent to apply, at any stage, for the security to be increased, and the court then looks at the vessel’s daily running costs and the earnings lost while she was held. If the additional security is not lodged within the period the court sets, the arrest order lapses of its own accord. The claimant may ask the same court for a reduction under Article 1363(4).
The exemption from the 10,000 SDR security is narrow. Article 1363(3) frees only the claims listed in Article 1320(1)(a): seafarers’ wages and other sums due to them for their service on board, including repatriation costs and social security contributions. A crew of unpaid seafarers can therefore reach a ship in Turkey at zero upfront security. A bunker supplier owed three hundred thousand dollars cannot. Turkish maritime enforcement law has a clear view about whose claim deserves a free door, and it is not the trader’s.
Is the security refunded when the claimant wins?
The 10,000 SDR security is not released when the arrest is granted; it stays in place while the owner’s wrongful-arrest exposure remains open, and Article 1361 lets the owner bring that damages claim before the court that ordered the arrest, with any pending merits proceedings treated as a preliminary question. Where the security is lodged in cash and the litigation runs for years, its real value erodes with the lira. Claimants who intend to use arrest as settlement leverage, which is most of them, should understand that the leverage is bought.
| Feature | Provisional attachment under the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Code | Ship arrest under the Turkish Commercial Code |
|---|---|---|
| Type of claim required | A due monetary claim not secured by a pledge (Article 257) | Only a maritime claim listed in Article 1352 |
| Target asset | Any asset of the debtor except the ship (TCC Article 1353(3)) | The vessel itself, and in defined cases a sister ship (Article 1369) |
| Security from the claimant | Generally required under Article 259, amount set by the court | Fixed at 10,000 SDR (Article 1363); only seafarer claims exempt |
| Alternative interim relief | Injunctions available under general procedure | No injunction or sailing ban against the vessel (Article 1353(1)) |
| Deadline to request enforcement of the order | Ten days from the decision (Article 261) | Three business days from the decision (Article 1364) |
| Deadline to sue or start enforcement after the attachment | Seven days (Article 264) | One month (Article 1376) |
| Court with jurisdiction, foreign flag | Several courts may be competent | Only the court where the vessel is lying (Article 1355) |
The right-hand column is why a general commercial litigator, however capable, is the wrong instrument here. Nothing in ordinary Turkish attachment practice prepares a lawyer for a three business day clock.
⚖️ The Two Mistakes That Kill a Turkish Ship Arrest Before It Begins
The two errors that most often destroy an otherwise good arrest application in Turkey are treating an ordinary commercial debt as a maritime claim, and assuming that a vessel controlled by the debtor’s corporate group can be arrested for the debtor’s obligations.
Mistake one: the claim is not a maritime claim. Article 1352 sets out an exhaustive list. Operational damage, personal injury, salvage, towage, pilotage, port dues, supplies, construction and repair, crew wages, disbursements, mortgages, ownership and possession disputes and a defined set of others. Article 1353(3) closes the door: no provisional arrest of a ship may be ordered for claims outside that list.
The consequence is unintuitive for commercial parties. A shipping company may owe a supplier a very large sum arising from a long-standing commercial relationship, and none of it may touch the hull by way of provisional arrest. The creditor is not without remedy: general provisional attachment under the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Code remains available against the debtor’s other assets, and the ship itself comes back within reach once enforcement proceedings have become final, as the next section explains.
Mistake two: the ship in the berth is not the debtor’s ship. Article 1369(1) permits arrest where the person who owned the ship when the claim arose is still liable and still owns her when the arrest is effected; where the person who was her bareboat charterer when the claim arose is liable and owns her when the arrest is effected; where the claim is secured by a mortgage or a charge of the same nature; where the dispute concerns ownership or possession; or where the claim carries a maritime lien under Article 1320.
Article 1369(2) of the TCC permits arrest of a sister ship: another vessel owned, when the arrest is effected, by the person liable, provided that person was the owner or charterer of the ship in connection with which the claim arose.
Article 1369 does not permit arrest of an associated ship. Turkish law has no associated ship remedy. Where a vessel is held by a single-ship company that shares ultimate beneficial ownership with the debtor but owns nothing the debtor owes, the hull is not reachable through Article 1369 by that route, and the doctrinal debate about piercing the corporate veil in this context remains exactly that, a debate.
The associated ship trap costs money rather than time. The claimant identifies the vessel, lodges 10,000 SDR, files, and then discovers that the registered owner is a Marshall Islands entity with one hull and no relationship to the invoice except a common shareholder in Athens. The arrest fails. The security stays exposed to the owner’s damages claim.
Can the corporate structure be attacked at all?
Where a maritime claim carries a maritime lien under Article 1320, the lien attaches to the vessel and follows her into the hands of a new owner, which means that in lien-bearing claims a change of ownership does not automatically defeat the arrest. That is the aperture. Crew wages, salvage, port dues and certain other privileged claims travel with the hull. Bunker supply does not appear among the Article 1320 liens. The distinction between a maritime claim and a maritime lien is invisible from the commercial side of the transaction and decisive on the legal side, and it is the single most valuable piece of analysis a Turkish maritime lawyer performs before security is lodged.
Where a claim is contractual rather than lien-bearing, and the debtor’s structure is defensive, the honest advice is often that arrest is not the route and that cross-border debt recovery against the debtor’s other Turkish assets will produce more and cost less, usually after a debtor asset investigation has shown where those assets actually are.
⚖️ Can a Ship Be Seized in Turkey for an Ordinary Commercial Debt?
Yes, but not as security before judgment: Article 1382(2) of the Turkish Commercial Code provides that the maritime claim requirement does not apply to the execution attachment of ships, so a creditor whose enforcement proceedings have become final can attach the debtor’s vessel for an ordinary commercial debt.
Turkish ship enforcement law runs on two separate tracks. Provisional arrest under Article 1353(3) is reserved for the maritime claims listed in Article 1352 and secures a claim before anyone has decided it. Execution attachment under Article 1382(2) enforces a claim that has already been established, and it is open to any creditor of the shipowner, maritime or not.
Execution attachment of a ship borrows the machinery of arrest. Article 1382(1) applies Articles 1364 to 1368 to the final attachment of every Turkish and foreign flag vessel, so the three business day request deadline, immediate enforcement by the execution office, detention of the ship and notification of the harbour master and customs all apply in the same way.
For an unpaid trade creditor without a maritime claim, the practical sequence in Turkey is therefore title first, hull second. The creditor obtains a judgment, has a foreign judgment or award recognised, or brings ordinary enforcement proceedings to finality, while attaching the debtor’s other assets in the meantime. The vessel becomes reachable once that title exists, provided she is in Turkish waters at that moment.
An ordinary creditor who sells a ship this way ranks behind almost everyone else. Under Articles 1389 to 1397 the sale proceeds pass through seven ranks first (enforcement costs, wreck removal, maritime liens, the shipyard, customs, pledges and every remaining maritime claim), and ordinary creditors sit in the eighth and last.
Ship arrest under Article 1352 is a security measure for maritime claims and it does not extend beyond them: it is not a general debt collection tool, it does not create a maritime lien where none exists, and it does not decide the underlying dispute. A registered ship attached for any claim is sold under the rules of the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Code for immovables, and an unregistered one under the rules for movables (Article 1383), through the procedure our enforcement and bankruptcy practice handles.
⚖️ Ship Arrest in Turkey: The Machinery Underneath
Ship arrest in Turkey is a provisional attachment ordered by a competent civil court, enforced by the execution office on a request made within three business days, and communicated to the harbour master, the coast guard and customs, whose cooperation converts a paper order into an immobilised vessel.
Jurisdiction. For Turkish flag vessels, Article 1354 makes competent the court of the place where the ship is anchored, moored to a buoy or dolphin, berthed or on the slipway; the court of the place of registry; the court of the owner’s domicile for unregistered vessels; or the court of the bareboat charterer’s domicile for ships in the special registry kept under Article 941(3). For foreign flag vessels Article 1355 collapses the list to one: only the court of the place where the vessel is physically lying may order the arrest. There is no forum shopping in a foreign flag arrest. There is only the port.
Arbitration and foreign forum clauses. Article 1356 preserves the arrest jurisdiction of the Turkish courts even where the parties have agreed to foreign arbitration, a foreign forum, or the application of foreign law to the merits. Once merits proceedings have begun abroad or before an arbitral tribunal, Article 1357(2) keeps arrest applications with the courts competent under Articles 1354 and 1355 until a final judgment. An LMAA clause does not close the Turkish courthouse for the purpose of obtaining security.
Standard of proof. Under Article 1362 the claimant must give the court evidence sufficient to form a view that the claim exists, that it is a maritime claim, and what it is worth. Contracts, invoices, delivery notes countersigned by the master, requisition forms and email correspondence generally carry this burden. A maritime claim that is not yet due can support arrest only where the conditions of Article 257(2) of the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Code are met (Article 1353(5)).
Enforcement. Once the order is granted, the creditor has three business days from the date of the decision to ask the execution office, either in the judicial district of the issuing court or where the vessel lies, to enforce it (Article 1364). Miss the three days and the arrest order lapses automatically. Article 1365 then requires the execution office to carry out the arrest immediately, including at night and on official holidays.
Effect. Under Article 1366 the execution officer prevents the ship from sailing and places her under custody, leaving her with the master, owner or operator as custodian under the criminal liability of Article 289 of the Turkish Penal Code. The officer notifies the coast guard or police, the harbour master and customs immediately, and the ship’s registry and, for a foreign flag vessel, the nearest consulate of the flag state on the next business day.
Where a Turkish flag vessel is already at sea when an arrest order is to be enforced, Article 1367 requires service on the owner, the non-owning operator and the person personally liable, with notice that security must be given within ten days, failing which the vessel is to be delivered to the execution office on her next voyage. For foreign flag vessels the order may be enforced, with the assistance of the coast guard, until the ship leaves Turkish territorial waters.
Completing the arrest. Article 1376 gives the arresting creditor one month, instead of the seven days in Article 264 of the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Code, to bring the merits action or start enforcement proceedings after the arrest. Missing that one month deadline leaves the arrest without a foundation, and the vessel is released.
Preservation costs. Article 1368(2) obliges the execution office to take whatever measures the arrested ship’s management, maintenance and preservation require, and the arresting creditor advances those costs for every day she is held.
Release. Under Article 1371 the owner or the debtor may obtain release by providing security sufficient to cover the claim with interest and costs, capped at the value of the vessel; Article 1370 alternatively allows the ship to be left in the debtor’s hands against a deposit of her value or other acceptable security, and Article 1372 lets the parties agree the form and amount between themselves. Release security and the claimant’s 10,000 SDR security are different instruments, and much English-language commentary on Turkish arrest conflates them.
⚖️ Turkey and the 1999 Arrest Convention: The Date Most Websites Get Wrong
Turkey is a party to the International Convention on Arrest of Ships 1999, and the Convention entered into force for Turkey on 11 December 2019.
The sequence is this. Accession was approved by Law No. 6904 of 2 March 2017. Presidential Decision No. 1034, by which Turkey acceded to the Convention with an attached declaration, was published in the Official Gazette on 3 May 2019 (issue 30763, repeated edition). Turkey deposited its instrument of accession with the UN Secretary-General on 11 September 2019, and under Article 14(2) of the Convention it took effect for Turkey three months later, on 11 December 2019, as recorded in the UN Treaty Collection depositary record.
Several widely read Turkish practice notes state instead that the 1999 Convention entered into force for Turkey in March 2017. The 2017 date belongs to the approval law: Law No. 6904 authorised accession and was published in the Official Gazette that month, but an approval law is not an accession, and a treaty does not bind Turkey until the instrument is deposited and the treaty’s own entry-into-force clock has run. A claimant relying on the 2017 date may assume Convention arguments were available for a 2018 claim when they were not.
The 2011 Commercial Code was drafted directly against the 1999 Convention text, which is why Turkish arrest law feels familiar to English maritime practitioners. Article 1352 follows the Convention’s maritime claim list almost verbatim, with one widening: its disbursements head expressly includes loans taken for the ship. The Turkish drafters imported the Convention into domestic law years before Turkey acceded to it.
Article 1369 follows Article 3 of the Convention with one omission. Article 3(1)(b) of the Convention allows arrest where the demise charterer at the time the claim arose is liable and is the owner or the demise charterer when the arrest is effected; Article 1369(1)(b) of the TCC does not contain the words “or the demise charterer”. Since 11 December 2019 both texts are in force in Turkey.
Does the Convention add anything, if the Code already contains it?
The 1999 Convention gives Turkish arrest law a second, treaty-based source: under Article 90 of the Turkish Constitution, a duly ratified international agreement has the force of law and cannot be challenged before the Constitutional Court on grounds of unconstitutionality. Article 90’s separate rule that a treaty prevails over a conflicting statute applies only to treaties on fundamental rights and freedoms, so a divergence such as the demise charterer wording is resolved by the courts through ordinary rules of interpretation rather than by an automatic priority clause.
Procedure, meanwhile, remains governed by lex fori. Article 2(4) of the Convention leaves the procedure for arrest and release to the law of the state where the arrest is applied for, which is why the 10,000 SDR security, a purely domestic Turkish requirement, sits comfortably alongside a Convention regime that says nothing about it. Foreign clients can follow Turkish maritime administration through the Directorate General of Maritime Affairs of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure (Denizcilik Genel Müdürlüğü), and the full text of the Commercial Code on the official legislation portal at mevzuat.gov.tr.
⚖️ My Cargo Arrived Damaged or Short. Who Pays?
Liability for cargo damage in Turkey is determined by the bill of lading, the identity of the contractual and actual carrier, the condition of the goods at loading and discharge, the timeliness of notice and protest, and the applicable limitation of liability regime.
Cargo claims in Turkey turn on evidence with a short life. Once the goods leave the terminal, once the container is stripped without a joint survey, once the delivery is receipted clean because the driver was in a hurry, the factual structure of the claim is compromised in ways no amount of subsequent legal skill repairs. Turkish courts are receptive to well-documented cargo claims and unimpressed by reconstructed ones.
What single document decides most Turkish cargo claims?
The bill of lading decides most cargo claims in Turkey, because it identifies the carrier, records the apparent condition of the goods on shipment, incorporates the terms and any arbitration or jurisdiction clause, and fixes the party against whom the claim must be brought. A cargo owner who cannot say with confidence who the carrier is has a grievance, not a claim.
The working file in a Turkish cargo claim typically contains:
- The bill of lading, in original where recovery requires presentation
- Commercial invoice and packing list
- Independent survey report, ideally from a joint survey
- Photographs taken at discharge, dated
- Delivery records and any reservation or clausing
- Notice of loss and protest letters, with proof of service
- Correspondence between shipper, consignee, carrier and agent
- The cargo policy and any subrogation receipt
Where the cargo was insured, the underwriter usually runs the recovery through subrogation, and the file assembled in the first week decides whether it recovers or writes the loss off.
Carrier identity deserves particular attention. Turkish courts distinguish between the contractual carrier and the actual carrier, and a claim brought only against a chartering intermediary, or only against a vessel owner who was never party to the contract of carriage, can be dismissed on standing while the limitation period quietly expires against the correct defendant.
⚖️ Charterparty, Freight and Demurrage Disputes with a Turkish Connection
Charterparty disputes reach Turkish law through security and enforcement rather than through the merits, because most charterparties are governed by English law and referred to London arbitration, while the vessel, the bunkers, the receivables or the counterparty’s assets are in Turkey.
Owners and charterers sometimes read a London arbitration clause as an instruction to ignore Turkey entirely. It is not. Article 1356 of the Turkish Commercial Code expressly preserves the jurisdiction of the Turkish courts to order arrest in aid of a maritime claim notwithstanding a foreign jurisdiction clause, a foreign arbitration agreement, or the application of foreign law to the substance.
The practical result is a two-track dispute. The merits proceed in London. The pressure is applied in Tuzla.
Can an owner arrest a vessel in Turkey to secure a London arbitration claim?
Yes. A Turkish court may order arrest of a vessel to obtain security for a maritime claim whose merits are subject to foreign arbitration or a foreign court, provided the claim falls within Article 1352 and the arrest conditions of Article 1369 are satisfied. This is one of the more useful features of Turkish maritime enforcement and one of the least understood by foreign counsel who assume the arbitration clause has ousted the local courts.
Where the dispute is heading to an arbitral forum and the client needs Turkish support rather than Turkish litigation, the work is coordinated through our arbitration practice, which handles both institutional and ad hoc proceedings with a Turkish nexus.
The strategic question in a charterparty dispute is rarely where the tribunal sits. It is where the money can be reached, and whether reaching it early costs less than winning slowly.
⚖️ Marine Insurance, P&I Clubs and Subrogated Recovery
Marine insurance work in Turkey covers hull and machinery coverage disputes, cargo policy claims, P&I liability matters, subrogated recovery against carriers and third parties, casualty investigation and settlement negotiation.
Insurance files fail quietly, in the first week rather than at trial: a late notice, an unattended survey, a delivery receipt signed clean that will be read, four years later, as an admission.
Why do subrogated recovery claims fail in Turkey more often than coverage disputes?
Subrogated recovery claims fail more often because they depend on evidence gathered by the insured before the insurer was involved, whereas coverage disputes are decided on documents the insurer already controls. By the time the underwriter pays and steps into the assured’s shoes, the survey has or has not been done, the protest has or has not been served, and the carrier has or has not been identified correctly. The insurer inherits the file it is given.
Our marine insurance work, run alongside our wider insurance law practice, includes policy wording review, coverage analysis, subrogated recovery against carriers, terminals and third parties, coordination of surveyors and technical experts, response to P&I liability claims, settlement structuring, and representation before Turkish commercial courts.
⚖️ Ship Sale, Purchase, Mortgage and Yacht Registration
A vessel transaction in Turkey requires verification of title, registry entries, mortgages and encumbrances, class status, corporate authority, tax and customs exposure, pending disputes and the mechanics of payment against delivery.
A ship is not an asset. It is a legal history with an engine.
Unpaid crew wages, salvage and port dues generate maritime liens that survive a change of ownership. A vessel bought cheaply from a seller under pressure may arrive with a lien portfolio the buyer discovers when a creditor arrests her in the buyer’s hands, by which time the seller has dissolved.
What is the one check a foreign buyer cannot delegate?
The one check a foreign buyer cannot delegate is the maritime lien position, because liens under Article 1320 attach to the vessel rather than to the owner and follow her to the new owner regardless of the buyer’s good faith. Registry searches disclose mortgages. They do not disclose an unpaid bosun in Batumi.
Transactional work therefore covers memorandum of agreement drafting and negotiation, Turkish ship registry searches, corporate authority verification, mortgage and encumbrance analysis, escrow and payment mechanics, closing document coordination, deletion and registration procedures, and delivery and acceptance documentation. Registry, flag and ownership structuring itself is covered on our page on boat, yacht and ship registration in Turkey.
Yacht purchases add a layer that has nothing to do with maritime law and everything to do with money: import status, VAT exposure, customs treatment, flag choice, private versus commercial use, and the residence position of the buyer. A yacht that is commercially clean can carry a tax problem that exceeds the difference between a good price and a bad one. Foreign buyers routinely negotiate hard on the hull and sign the tax structure without reading it.
⚖️ Ports, Harbour Masters and Vessel Detention
Port-related maritime law in Turkey governs vessel entry and departure, anchorage, cargo operations, port dues, detention, safety inspection, harbour master procedure and administrative penalties.
Foreign clients underestimate this layer consistently, because in their home jurisdictions the administrative and the judicial rarely touch. In Turkey they touch constantly. The harbour master is not a party to the dispute and is not a court, but a vessel does not leave without the harbour master’s clearance, and an arrest order that has not reached the right desk in the right form is an arrest order that has not happened.
Can a port authority hold a vessel that no court has arrested?
Yes. Turkish port and maritime authorities may withhold departure clearance for safety, documentation, environmental or administrative reasons entirely independently of any court order, and the resulting delay produces commercial loss that the owner cannot recover from a claimant because no claimant is involved. Administrative detention and judicial arrest are separate mechanisms with separate remedies, and an owner who responds to the first with the strategy appropriate to the second loses time in both.
⚖️ Pollution, Crew Claims and the Administrative Layer
Pollution incidents and crew claims in Turkey generate simultaneous exposure across administrative, civil and, in serious pollution cases, criminal tracks, and each track has its own clock.
In a pollution incident, the first hours decide the next two years. Reporting obligations arise immediately. Administrative fines are assessed on a framework that does not wait for the civil liability position to clarify. Insurance notification, expert evidence, sampling, third party claims and reputational management all begin at once, and they begin before anyone knows what happened.
The master’s report, the first statement to the authorities and the sampling protocol are all evidence, usually created by people who do not know they are creating it.
Crew claims run on a different logic. The amounts are frequently modest against the value of the vessel and the operational consequences are anything but, because seafarers claiming wages hold maritime liens under Article 1320(1)(a) and are exempt from the 10,000 SDR security requirement. A crew of eighteen unpaid seafarers is, from the owner’s perspective, eighteen creditors with free access to an arrest court.
Why do crew wage claims move faster than commercial claims in Turkey?
Crew wage claims move faster because Article 1363(3) exempts the seafarer claims listed in Article 1320(1)(a) from the security that every other arresting creditor must provide, which removes the single largest barrier to arrest. The exemption is written into the statute itself, so arrest in a seafarer wage claim requires no security at all. Owners facing crew claims in a Turkish port should treat the file as urgent regardless of quantum.
⚖️ Maritime Litigation, Arbitration and Enforcing a Foreign Award in Turkey
Maritime disputes in Turkey are heard by the competent commercial courts of first instance, while arbitration, whether Turkish or foreign, is available where the contract provides for it and enforcement of the resulting award requires a separate Turkish court application.
Turkey does not maintain a specialist admiralty court in the English sense. Maritime disputes are allocated to commercial courts, and in the major maritime centres those courts and their judges accumulate real familiarity with the subject matter. The absence of a dedicated admiralty division is a structural fact, not a quality judgment, and foreign clients who expect the Admiralty Court should calibrate accordingly.
Where a foreign judgment or arbitral award already exists, it does not enforce itself. Recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments and awards require an application to a Turkish court, and the court examines jurisdiction, finality, service, reciprocity where applicable, and compatibility with Turkish public order. Awards falling under the New York Convention follow the Convention’s grounds. Judgments follow the framework of Turkish private international law.
A prior Turkish ship arrest also fixes the enforcement forum. Under Article 1360, the Turkish court that arrested the vessel has jurisdiction to enforce the foreign judgment or award on the merits of the same maritime claim, provided the ship is still within its district, or the release security is still held in court, on the day enforcement is requested.
Is a London arbitration award automatically enforceable against a ship in a Turkish port?
No. A foreign arbitral award must first be recognised and declared enforceable by a Turkish court before it can be executed against assets in Turkey, and the recognition proceeding is a separate action with its own timetable. This is why security obtained during the dispute, through arrest, is worth disproportionately more than security pursued after the award. The award is a right. The arrest is a hold.
Where the dispute has left the maritime frame entirely and become a general commercial recovery, it moves to our commercial litigation practice.
⚖️ When Should a Foreign Company Instruct Turkish Maritime Counsel?
Turkish maritime counsel should be instructed when a vessel with an actual or potential claim against her is scheduled to call at a Turkish port, when cargo is about to be discharged or released, when a survey has not yet been performed, when a limitation period is approaching, or when a foreign award requires enforcement against Turkish assets.
Legal value in maritime matters decays with the availability of the asset: a claim is worth a great deal while the vessel is at Ambarlı and far less once she is inbound to Suez.
Four moments deserve a call, and none of them feel urgent when they arrive:
Before the port call. If a debtor’s vessel has a Turkish rotation, the arrest file can be prepared in advance: vessel identified, claim qualified, security arranged, petition drafted, execution office located. Arrest prepared in advance is executed in hours. Arrest prepared on arrival is usually executed after departure.
Before the cargo moves. Once the container leaves the terminal without a joint survey, the cargo claim has lost its evidential spine.
Before the settlement discussion. A creditor who has not established whether the claim is arrestable is negotiating without knowing what leverage exists. So, frequently, is the debtor.
Before the limitation period. Maritime limitation periods are short and vary by claim type. They run whether or not anyone is watching.
⚖️ How Do I Know I Am Hiring the Right Maritime Law Firm in Turkey?
A maritime law firm in Turkey should be assessed on maritime claim expertise, arrest response capacity within hours, familiarity with harbour master and execution office practice, working English with foreign counsel and underwriters, and a willingness to advise against a claim that will not work.
General litigation credentials do not transfer. An excellent petition filed in the right court still fails if nobody reaches the execution office within three business days.
The questions worth asking a Turkish firm before instructing it:
- Can you tell me today whether my claim falls within Article 1352?
- What will the 10,000 SDR security cost in lira this week, and when is it released?
- Who owns the vessel currently, and how do you verify that?
- Does my claim carry a maritime lien, or only a maritime claim?
- If I arrest and I am wrong, what is my exposure?
- Which execution office, and how far is it from the berth?
- Have you appeared before the commercial court in that district?
A firm that answers the fifth question comfortably is a firm that will answer the others honestly. Wrongful arrest liability is the subject most Turkish maritime pages omit, and it is the subject that determines whether the advice you are receiving is advice or advertising.
⚖️ Why Foreign Clients Work with Oznur & Partners
Oznur & Partners acts for foreign shipowners, charterers, cargo interests, suppliers, insurers and law firms in Turkish maritime disputes, combining commercial litigation and enforcement practice with the administrative coordination that Turkish maritime matters demand.
The firm’s core work (litigation, enforcement, commercial and investment matters for non-Turkish parties) is precisely the combination a maritime file requires, because a ship arrest is an enforcement problem wearing a commercial dispute’s clothing.
In a maritime matter that means the arrest, the execution office, the harbour master notification and the eventual recognition proceeding run inside one file, not between three firms with three views of the deadline.
What does a Turkish maritime lawyer owe a client whose claim will not succeed?
The obligation is to say so before the security is lodged, because 10,000 SDR put up in support of an unarrestable claim buys nothing but exposure, and no amount of advocacy later recovers that position. We would rather lose the instruction than take it on a claim that fails at Article 1352. This is also, incidentally, the commercially sound position, since wrongful arrest exposes the claimant to the owner’s daily running costs and lost earnings.
⚖️ How We Work with Foreign Owners, Insurers and Law Firms
Oznur & Partners can assess and act on Turkish maritime matters remotely, beginning on scanned documents while the notarised and apostilled power of attorney is prepared in parallel.
An initial assessment generally requires the vessel’s name and IMO number, her current or expected position, the contract or bill of lading, the invoices and delivery documentation, the correspondence trail, any survey report, and a short chronology. From that material we can usually say within hours whether arrest is available, what it will cost, and what the realistic downside is.
For foreign law firms leading a matter, we act as Turkish local counsel: the arrest is ours, the strategy remains yours. For P&I Clubs and their correspondents, we handle the court-facing work while the technical file stays where it belongs. For underwriters running subrogated recovery, we work from the file as it exists, which is not always the file anyone would have chosen.
Foreign-language documents need certified translation, and powers of attorney signed abroad need an apostille under the Hague Convention. Neither is an obstacle; both take time, which is the scarcest thing in an arrest file.
⚖️ Related Legal Resources
🔹 Enforcement and recovery
Bankruptcy and Enforcement Lawyer in Istanbul: execution proceedings and judicial sale, where a registered ship is sold under the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Code rules for immovables (TCC Article 1383).
International Debt Collection: recovery of non-maritime claims against Turkish assets, where provisional attachment must be enforced within ten days of the decision.
Debtor Asset Investigation: locating the accounts, receivables and vessels a debtor holds in Turkey before any attachment is filed.
Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments: turning a foreign judgment or award into an enforceable Turkish title, before the court that arrested the ship where Article 1360 applies.
🔹 Disputes and arbitration
Arbitration Lawyer in Turkey: charterparty arbitration support, with Turkish arrest jurisdiction preserved by Article 1356 despite a foreign arbitration clause.
Commercial Litigation Lawyer: the substantive dispute behind the maritime claim, heard by the commercial courts of first instance.
Insurance Law: hull, machinery and cargo policy disputes and subrogated recovery under Turkish insurance law.
🔹 Vessels and representation
Boat, Yacht and Ship Registration in Turkey: registry, flag and ownership questions, including the registry court that Article 1354 makes competent for Turkish flag arrests.
Power of Attorney in Turkey: the notarised and apostilled authority a foreign claimant needs for Turkish court and execution office work.
Schedule a Maritime Law Consultation
If you are considering arresting a vessel in a Turkish port, defending against an arrest, pursuing a cargo or charterparty claim, or enforcing a foreign award against Turkish assets, our Maritime Lawyers in Istanbul are available for an initial assessment.
⚖️ Conclusion
Maritime law in Turkey rewards the party who understood the rules before the vessel arrived and punishes the party who learned them after she left.
This page opened with three facts: the closed list of maritime claims, the 10,000 SDR security, and the ship that belongs to someone other than the debtor. Each of them is a wall. None of them is visible from the deck.
A claimant who knows about the wall in advance can budget the security, verify the registry and reach the execution office within three business days of the order. A claimant who discovers it on the day of arrival has a valid claim and no leverage, which in shipping is another way of saying no claim at all.
The law will still be there when the vessel has gone. The ship will not.
Oznur & Partners advises foreign shipowners, charterers, cargo interests, suppliers, insurers and law firms on Turkey-related maritime matters, from urgent arrest applications to recognition of foreign awards.