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 a Turkish court will even look at the arrest file, the claimant must deposit security of 10,000 Special Drawing Rights. Not after the arrest. Before the examination. 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 money has been deposited 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 roughly forty thousand commercial transits pass through those Straits in a normal 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 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 separate interim injunction or 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 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 before the cargo moves, checking title and encumbrances before the purchase price is released, structuring the bunker supply contract so that the claim it generates will qualify as a maritime claim if it is ever unpaid. 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 arbitral award against Turkish assets. This work 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 deposit is worth making. 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
- Bill of lading and carrier identity disputes
- 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
- Port detention, harbour master procedures and administrative fines
- Ship sale, purchase, mortgage and registry matters
- Yacht purchase, import, VAT and registration questions
- Shipyard, repair and newbuilding disputes
- Recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments and arbitral awards
- Pollution incidents and environmental liability
- Seafarer wage, repatriation and injury claims
Fifteen 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 pays security before the file is examined, and for foreign flag vessels only the court at the precise place where the ship is lying has jurisdiction.
Each of those three features is defensible in isolation. Together they produce a system in which a well-founded claim, brought a day late or filed in the wrong courthouse, simply evaporates.
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. The same fact reads in opposite directions depending on which side of the invoice you sit on, which is why maritime advice in Turkey is rarely neutral and never generic.
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. The Turkish Commercial Code No. 6102 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 bank transfer, an execution office application, and a conversation with a harbour master, arranged in the right order, inside seventy-two hours. 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 deposit in Turkish lira, 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 a wasted deposit.
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. Turkish judges apply the approximate proof standard (yaklaşık ispat), which is generous about certainty and unforgiving about category.
Security. Ten thousand Special Drawing Rights, converted into Turkish lira at the Central Bank rate on the day of application, paid in cash into the account the court nominates. As of April 2025 this was in the region of USD 13,600. If it is not deposited, the court does not examine the application at all. It does not reject it on the merits. It does not reach the merits.
Representation. A notarised and apostilled power of attorney 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 deposit 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 Turkish courts will not examine an arrest application until that security is deposited.
Foreign claimants routinely assume this is a fee, or a bond posted after the order is granted, or something a P&I Club letter can cover. It is none of those. It is cash, in Turkish lira, converted at the Central Bank rate on the day of filing, held by the court until the underlying dispute is finally resolved or settled.
The purpose is not revenue. The purpose is wrongful arrest. If the arrest turns out to have been unjustified, the deposit is there to compensate the owner for the days the vessel sat idle. Article 1363 permits the respondent to apply, at any stage, for the security to be increased, and when the court considers that application it looks at the vessel’s daily running costs and the earnings lost while she was held. A large ship detained on a thin claim can generate an increase order quickly. If the additional security is not deposited within the period the court sets, the arrest order lapses of its own accord.
The claimant may also apply to reduce the amount. In practice, reduction is granted rarely and increase is granted more often than foreign claimants expect.
There is one exception, and it is narrow. Holders of maritime liens under Article 1320, in particular seafarers claiming wages and other sums due for their service on board, are exempt from the security requirement. A crew of unpaid seafarers can therefore reach a ship in Turkey at zero upfront cost. 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 deposit refunded when the claimant wins?
The deposit is returned when the dispute is concluded by a final judgment or settlement, not when the arrest is granted, which means the money remains with the court for the duration of the underlying proceedings. In a jurisdiction where commercial litigation can run for years and the lira has moved as it has, the erosion of the deposit’s real value is a commercial cost of the remedy, not an accounting footnote. Claimants who intend to litigate in Turkey should budget for it. Claimants who intend to use arrest as settlement leverage, which is most of them, should understand that the leverage is bought.
| Feature | Ordinary attachment under the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Code | Ship arrest under the Turkish Commercial Code |
|---|---|---|
| Type of claim required | Any monetary claim | Only a maritime claim listed in Article 1352 |
| Target asset | Any asset of the debtor except the ship | The vessel itself, and in defined cases a sister ship |
| Security from the claimant | Discretionary, set by the court | Fixed at 10,000 SDR, mandatory before examination |
| Alternative interim relief | Injunctions available | No injunction or sailing ban against the vessel |
| Deadline to enforce the order | Ten days | Three business days, or the order lapses |
| Court with jurisdiction, foreign flag | Several courts may be competent | Only the court where the vessel is lying |
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.
Take them in order, because they fail at different stages and one of them fails after the money has been paid.
Mistake one: the claim is not a maritime claim. Article 1352 sets out an exhaustive list. Loss or damage caused by the operation of the ship. Loss of life or personal injury in direct connection with the operation of the ship. Salvage operations and special compensation for salvage involving a vessel threatening environmental damage. Towage, pilotage, port and canal dues, goods and materials supplied to the vessel for her operation, construction and repair, crew wages, disbursements, mortgages, ownership and possession disputes, and a defined set of others. Article 1353 closes the door: no 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. The creditor is not without remedy: general attachment under the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Code remains available against the debtor’s other assets. It is simply that the asset the creditor actually wants, the one that generates the leverage, is out of reach.
Mistake two: the ship in the berth is not the debtor’s ship. Article 1369 permits arrest where the person liable for the maritime claim was the owner or bareboat charterer when the claim arose and remains liable and is the owner when the arrest is applied for, or where the claim is secured by a mortgage or a charge of the same nature, or where the dispute concerns ownership or possession, or where the claim carries a maritime lien under Article 1320. Article 1369 also permits arrest of a sister ship, another vessel owned by the person liable.
It 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.
This is the trap that costs money rather than time. The claimant identifies the vessel, deposits 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 deposit stays with the court.
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, in most configurations, does not. 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 a deposit is made.
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.
⚖️ 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 within three business days, and communicated to the harbour master, whose cooperation converts a paper order into an immobilised vessel.
The procedural sequence rewards preparation and punishes improvisation.
Jurisdiction. For Turkish flag vessels, the competent court may be 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 maintained under Article 941. For foreign flag vessels the list collapses 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.
Notably, the Code preserves this jurisdiction even where the parties have agreed to foreign arbitration, a foreign forum, or the application of foreign law to the merits. An LMAA clause does not close the Turkish courthouse for the purpose of obtaining security. It simply means the merits will be decided elsewhere.
Standard of proof. The claimant must establish, to the approximate proof standard, that the claim exists, that it is a maritime claim, and ordinarily that it is due and payable. Contracts, invoices, delivery notes countersigned by the master, and email correspondence generally carry this burden. Turkish appellate practice has treated repair and maintenance files, master-approved requisition forms and proforma invoices as significant for approximate proof in supply and repair claims.
Enforcement. Once the order is granted, the creditor has three business days from the date of the decision to apply to the execution office (either in the judicial district of the issuing court or where the vessel lies) for enforcement. Miss the three days and the arrest order lapses automatically. This is the deadline that catches foreign counsel accustomed to jurisdictions where an arrest warrant, once obtained, keeps.
Effect. The execution office takes the measures necessary for the administration, operation, maintenance and preservation of the vessel. In practice, enforcement means the harbour master is notified, the ship’s papers are taken, and clearance for the next voyage is refused. Where a Turkish flag vessel is already under way or at sea when the order is to be enforced, the order is served on the owner, the non-owning operator and the person personally liable, with notice that security must be provided within ten days, failing which the vessel is to be delivered to the execution office at her next call. For foreign flag vessels the order may be enforced, with the assistance of the coast guard, until the ship leaves Turkish territorial waters.
Preservation costs. An arrested ship is not a parked car. Crew, provisions, fuel, insurance, port occupancy and management continue to cost money every day she is held, and the creditor who arrested her advances those costs to the execution office. Arrest is a pressure instrument that burns the person applying it. This is by design.
Release. 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. That security is a different instrument from the claimant’s 10,000 SDR deposit, and conflating the two, as a good deal of English-language commentary on Turkish arrest does, produces advice that is confidently wrong in both directions.
Where an arrest has ripened into a judgment and the vessel or other assets must be liquidated, the process moves into the general framework of Turkish enforcement and bankruptcy procedure, with the maritime provisions of the Commercial Code operating as lex specialis on top of it.
⚖️ 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 date matters, and it is misreported often enough that a foreign owner researching Turkish arrest law online will encounter at least two incompatible answers on reputable Turkish law firm websites.
The sequence is this. Accession was approved by Law No. 6904 of 2 March 2017. The Presidential Decision giving effect to the accession, numbered 1034, was published in the Official Gazette on 3 May 2019 (issue 30763, repeated edition). The Convention then entered into force in respect of Turkey on 11 December 2019, a date confirmed in the general preamble to the draft Enforcement Code circulated for public consultation.
Several widely read Turkish practice notes state instead that the 1999 Convention entered into force for Turkey on 25 March 2017. That date belongs to a different instrument, the 1993 International Convention on Maritime Liens and Mortgages, and the conflation has propagated across English-language summaries with some persistence. The practical consequence is small but not zero: a foreign claimant relying on the earlier date may assume Convention-based arguments were available in respect of a 2018 claim when they were not.
There is a deeper point, and it explains why Turkish arrest law feels familiar to English maritime practitioners even before the Convention took effect. The maritime enforcement chapter of the 2011 Commercial Code was drafted directly against the 1999 Convention text. Article 1352 reproduces the Convention’s maritime claim list almost verbatim. Article 1369 reproduces Article 3 of the Convention. The Turkish drafters imported the Convention into domestic law years before Turkey acceded to it.
Does the Convention add anything, if the Code already contains it?
The Convention’s principal effect in Turkey is constitutional rather than procedural: under Article 90 of the Constitution, a duly ratified international agreement has the force of law and cannot be challenged for unconstitutionality, which places the Convention’s arrest framework above ordinary legislative amendment. 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 deposit, a purely domestic Turkish requirement, sits comfortably alongside a Convention regime that says nothing about it.
This is the sort of detail that separates a maritime practice from a general litigation practice with a shipping page. Foreign clients may verify the framework through the maritime administration of the Turkish Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, and the accession instrument itself in the Official Gazette of 3 May 2019.
⚖️ 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.
The question sounds simple and the answer almost never is, because the party the cargo owner is angry with is frequently not the party who is liable.
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 recovery is usually run by the underwriter through subrogation, and the quality of the file assembled in the first week determines whether the underwriter recovers or writes the loss off. Turkish maritime practice sees a good many claims that were legally sound and evidentially indefensible.
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. 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.
Turkish maritime work in charterparty disputes typically covers:
- Review of charterparty terms against Turkish mandatory rules
- Freight, hire and off-hire disputes
- Demurrage and laytime calculation, and the evidential file behind it
- Unsafe port and unsafe berth allegations at Turkish terminals
- Termination and repudiation analysis
- Pre-arbitration notices and security demands
- Arrest and interim measures in aid of foreign proceedings
- Recognition and enforcement of the resulting award
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. They do not fail at trial; they fail in the first week, when a notice was sent late, a survey was not attended, a joint inspection was declined, or a delivery receipt was signed clean because nobody on the ground understood that the document would be read, four years later, as an admission.
A Turkish maritime lawyer working an insurance file is doing three jobs at once: analysing coverage under the policy wording, preserving evidence against the party who will ultimately pay, and managing the relationship between insurer, insured, surveyor and correspondent, who frequently want different things from the same incident.
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 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.
Everything that has ever happened to a hull can attach to her. Unpaid crew wages generate maritime liens that survive a change of ownership. Salvage claims travel. Port dues travel. A vessel purchased at an attractive price from a seller under commercial pressure may arrive with a lien portfolio the buyer discovers when a creditor arrests her in the buyer’s hands, and the buyer’s remedy is then against a seller who 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.
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.
The authorities that can appear in a single maritime file include the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure and its maritime administration, the harbour master of the relevant port, customs, the coast guard command, the environmental authorities, and the port operator, which is usually a private company with its own contractual claims.
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.
Port work includes detention and release, harbour master correspondence, port dues and service fee disputes, customs-linked cargo problems, entry and departure restrictions, pollution reporting, agency and terminal disputes, and objections to administrative fines.
⚖️ 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 single most common error is separating the operational response from the legal response. The master’s report, the initial statement to the authorities and the sampling protocol are all evidence, and they are usually created by people who do not know they are creating evidence.
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 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 seafarers holding maritime liens under Article 1320 are exempt from the security deposit that Article 1363 imposes on all other arresting creditors, which removes the single largest barrier to arrest. Turkish appellate practice has confirmed that arrest may be ordered without security in seafarer wage claims. Owners facing crew claims in a Turkish port should treat the file as urgent regardless of quantum.
Legal work here covers seafarer wage and repatriation demands, injury and compensation claims, employment contract analysis, settlement documentation, representation before authorities and courts, pollution reporting advice, administrative fine objections, expert coordination, and communication with the P&I Club and its local correspondent.
⚖️ 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 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.
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.
Contentious maritime work includes commercial court litigation, arrest and release proceedings, evidence preservation, recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments and awards, support to London and international maritime arbitration, settlement negotiation and security documentation, and local counsel support to foreign law firms leading the matter. 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.
The general rule is that legal value in maritime matters decays with the availability of the asset. A claim against a vessel is worth a great deal while she is berthed at Ambarlı and considerably 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, deposit 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. A capable commercial litigator, faced with an arrest file, may prepare an excellent petition, file it in a competent court, and lose because nobody applied to the execution office within three business days. The knowledge that matters here is procedural, local and unglamorous.
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 deposit cost in lira this week, and when do I get it back?
- 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.
Our firm is based in Istanbul and our practice is built around foreign clients in Turkish proceedings. That is not a marketing position; it is a structural one. 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.
What that means in a maritime matter is that the arrest, the execution office, the harbour master notification, the insurance communication and the eventual recognition proceeding are handled inside one file rather than passed between three firms with three different 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 deposit is made, because a 10,000 SDR deposit paid into a Turkish court in support of an unarrestable claim is not recoverable through better advocacy later. 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.
Documents in a foreign language require certified translation for court use, and powers of attorney executed abroad require apostille under the Hague Convention. Neither is an obstacle. Both take time, and time is the commodity in shortest supply in every arrest file we have handled.
⚖️ Who We Act For
Our maritime clients are foreign parties with a Turkish exposure: shipowners and operators, time and voyage charterers, cargo owners and traders, bunker and provisions suppliers, shipyards and repairers, marine underwriters, P&I Clubs and their correspondents, yacht buyers, and foreign law firms requiring Turkish local counsel.
Each of them arrives with a different question and the same underlying anxiety.
The supplier asks whether the hull can be reached for an unpaid bunker or provisions invoice. The answer depends on Article 1352 and on who owns her today.
The owner asks how quickly an arrest can be lifted. The answer depends on the value of the ship and the size of the counter-security.
The cargo interest asks who is liable. The answer is on the reverse of the bill of lading, and often nobody has read it.
The underwriter asks whether recovery is worth pursuing. The answer depends on evidence gathered by somebody else, months ago, who was not thinking about litigation.
The foreign law firm asks whether the Turkish courts will respect the arbitration clause. The answer is yes on the merits and no on security, which is usually good news for their client.
The yacht buyer asks about the price. The question should have been about the VAT position and the maritime lien history.
⚖️ Related Legal Resources
Maritime disputes rarely stay inside maritime law. The following practice areas are frequently engaged alongside a shipping matter in Turkey:
- Arbitration Lawyer in Turkey, for charterparty arbitration support and enforcement of arbitral awards
- Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law, for execution proceedings and judicial sale of assets
- International Debt Collection, where the claim is not arrestable but the debtor has Turkish assets
- Commercial Litigation Lawyer, for the substantive dispute behind the maritime claim
Official information on Turkish maritime administration, port procedures and vessel documentation is published by the maritime administration of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure.
❓ Maritime Lawyer Turkey FAQ
✅ What is a maritime lawyer in Turkey?
A maritime lawyer in Turkey is a lawyer who advises and represents clients in disputes and transactions involving ships, cargo, ports, maritime contracts, ship arrest, marine insurance and vessel transactions under Turkish law. The work spans commercial court litigation, arbitration support, urgent enforcement action, evidence preservation and coordination with harbour masters and port authorities.
✅ Can a foreign company arrest a ship in Turkey?
Yes. A foreign company may obtain a ship arrest order in Turkey if its claim is a maritime claim listed in Article 1352 of the Turkish Commercial Code and the conditions of Article 1369 are satisfied. The nationality of the claimant is irrelevant. The category of the claim is decisive.
✅ How much does it cost to arrest a ship in Turkey?
The claimant must deposit security of 10,000 Special Drawing Rights, in Turkish lira at the Central Bank rate on the day of application, before a Turkish court will examine the arrest request. As of April 2025 this was approximately USD 13,600. Court fees, translation, enforcement costs and the vessel’s daily preservation expenses are additional and are advanced by the arresting creditor.
✅ Is the 10,000 SDR deposit returned to the claimant?
The deposit is held by the court until the underlying dispute is finally resolved by judgment or settlement, and is then returned if the arrest was justified. The respondent may apply at any stage for the amount to be increased, in which case the court considers the vessel’s daily running costs and lost earnings during detention.
✅ Can any commercial debt justify arresting a vessel in Turkey?
No. Turkish law permits ship arrest only for maritime claims listed exhaustively in Article 1352, and Article 1353 prohibits arrest of a vessel for any other claim. Creditors holding non-maritime claims may attach the debtor’s other assets under the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Code, but not the ship.
✅ What types of claims qualify as maritime claims in Turkey?
Claims arising from loss or damage caused by the operation of the ship, personal injury, salvage, towage, pilotage, port dues, goods and materials supplied to the vessel, construction and repair, crew wages, mortgages and ownership or possession disputes may qualify as maritime claims under Article 1352. Each claim must be matched to a specific subparagraph before filing.
✅ Can I arrest a sister ship or an affiliated company’s ship in Turkey?
Turkish law permits arrest of a sister ship owned by the person liable for the maritime claim, but it contains no associated ship remedy, so a vessel owned by an affiliated company that is not itself liable generally cannot be arrested. This makes verification of current registered ownership essential before any deposit is made.
✅ How fast is ship arrest in Turkey?
A Turkish court can grant an arrest order within a day where the file is complete, but the creditor must then apply to the execution office within three business days or the order lapses automatically. Speed depends on document quality, translation, the deposit being in place and the vessel being correctly identified.
✅ Which Turkish court has jurisdiction to arrest a foreign flag vessel?
For a foreign flag vessel, only the court of the place where the ship is anchored, moored to a buoy or dolphin, berthed or on the slipway may order the arrest. For Turkish flag vessels, the court of registry, the owner’s domicile or the bareboat charterer’s domicile may also be competent depending on the circumstances.
✅ Does a London arbitration clause prevent arrest in Turkey?
No. Turkish courts retain jurisdiction to order arrest as security for a maritime claim even where a foreign court or arbitral tribunal has jurisdiction over the merits, or where foreign law governs the substance. The merits proceed abroad; the security is obtained in Turkey.
✅ When did the 1999 Arrest Convention enter into force for Turkey?
The International Convention on Arrest of Ships 1999 entered into force for Turkey on 11 December 2019, following accession approved by Law No. 6904 and given effect by Presidential Decision No. 1034, published in the Official Gazette on 3 May 2019. Several sources incorrectly report 25 March 2017, which is the date associated with a different maritime convention.
✅ Can a vessel be released after arrest in Turkey?
Yes. The owner or the debtor may obtain release by providing security covering the claim, interest and costs, up to the value of the vessel. This release security is separate from the 10,000 SDR deposit paid by the arresting creditor and is calculated on a different basis.
✅ Do seafarers need to pay the security deposit to arrest a ship?
No. Holders of maritime liens under Article 1320, including seafarers claiming wages and other sums due for their service on board, are exempt from the security requirement of Article 1363. Crew wage claims can therefore reach a vessel without any upfront deposit.
✅ What documents are needed for a cargo claim in Turkey?
A cargo claim in Turkey typically requires the bill of lading, commercial invoice, packing list, survey report, dated photographs, delivery records, notices and protest letters, correspondence and the cargo insurance policy. The survey report and the timing of the protest usually determine the outcome.
✅ Can a foreign judgment or arbitral award be enforced against assets in Turkey?
Yes, but only after a Turkish court has recognised the judgment or declared the award enforceable in separate proceedings examining jurisdiction, finality, service and Turkish public order. Because recognition takes time, security obtained by arrest during the dispute is generally worth more than enforcement pursued after the award.
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 deposit, 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 foreign claimant who knows about the wall in advance can plan the port call, budget the deposit, verify the registry entry and be at the execution office within three business days of the order. A foreign claimant who discovers the wall on the day of arrival has a valid claim, a correct legal position, and no leverage whatsoever, 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 Law Firm advises international shipowners, charterers, cargo interests, suppliers, insurers and law firms on Turkey-related maritime matters, from urgent arrest applications to recognition of foreign awards, from an Istanbul practice built for foreign parties in Turkish proceedings.