Doing Business in Türkiye: Anti-corruption

In Türkiye, anti-corruption and bribery are regulated under the Criminal Code, the Law on Misconduct, the Law on Bribery and Corruption and the Regulation on Ethical Principles and Application Procedures and Principles for Public Servants. The Criminal Code defines certain actions which are punishable as corruption-related crimes. These include actions such as embezzlement or abuse of power by government officials, as well as collusion between private individuals and government officials in the form of bribery or bid rigging to accrue illegal benefit. 

The Criminal Code has a broad territorial reach in terms of jurisdiction for corruption-related crimes. Türkiye has also ratified international anti-corruption conventions, such as the Council of Europe Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (January 27, 1999), the Council of Europe Civil Law Convention on Corruption (November 4, 1999), the Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds of Crime (November 8, 1990), Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism (May 15, 2005), the OECD Convention on Combatting Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (December 17, 1997), the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (November 15, 2000) and the United Nation Convention against Corruption (October 31, 2003). 

Bribery is the most common example of a corruption-related crime involving both a government official and a private entity. Under Turkish law, bribery occurs when a private individual offers or gives something of value to a government official or someone appointed by the government official, directly or indirectly, with the intent to influence actions or outcomes or when a government official solicits or receives something of value in exchange for the government official’s exercise of or failure to exercise his or her public and legal duties. The Criminal Code is applicable to bribes offered by or given to Turkish and foreign government officials, governmental authorities, public authorities, judges, jury members, other officials of Turkish, foreign, international or supranational courts and arbitrators. Officials or representatives of international or supranational organizations are also punishable under the Criminal Code. 

Bribery is punishable by imprisonment. The term of imprisonment may vary between 4 to 12 years and may be reduced or increased by the court depending on the specifics of the case and the defendant. Under Turkish law, criminal liability is a personal liability reserved for individuals rather than corporate entities. Therefore, corporate entities as legal persons may not be convicted or sentenced for committing a crime. Corporate corruption may be criminally punished only through prosecution of a corporation’s executives or board members. If found guilty, individual executives or, where it is not possible to identify individual executives for the purposes of liability, the entire board may be punished by imprisonment. The Criminal Code provides leniency provisions for individuals who report bribes or other corrupt activities to the authorities prior to commencement of an investigation. This rule does not, however, apply to the bribing of foreign officials. 

The Criminal Code places an obligation of public duty on individuals with knowledge of any criminal offence to report the offence to the Public Prosecutor's Office. Failure to report is punishable by imprisonment for up to one year while the failure by public officials to report carries a penalty of imprisonment for six months to two years.

Furthermore, the Law on Money Laundering requires any party to a transaction with information, suspicion or reasonable grounds to suspect that an asset involved in the transaction or attempted transaction has been acquired through illegal means or used for illegal purposes to report the transaction to the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK). Parties to a transaction include entities engaged in banking, insurance, private pensions, capital markets, money lending or other financial activities.

MASAK regularly publishes guidelines for the notification of suspicious transactions in order to ensure that obliged parties have a common understanding and approach to preventing the laundering of criminal proceeds and financing of terrorism and to assist the obliged parties with identifying suspicious transactions. Regardless of the transaction amount, a suspicious transaction must be reported to MASAK by the obliged parties within 10 business days of the transaction raising a suspicion.

The Criminal Code provides a special prevention mechanism in the form of non-criminal sanctions, such as monetary fines under the Law on Misconduct or the revocation of the licenses required for operations, which may be imposed against corporate entities that have benefited from a corruption-related crime. Furthermore, certain sectors, such as energy, have regulations restricting the participation of officers and board members sentenced under the Criminal Code for corruption-related crimes.

On November 17, 2022, MASAK introduced the regulation on "persons with public influence" to fight against money laundering. In the regulation, it is stated that financial institutions, certain non-financial businesses and professions, and crypto asset service providers shall take measures to determine whether the customer or beneficial owner is a person of public influence. In this regard, pursuant to the Law No. 5549 on the Prevention of Laundering Proceeds of Crime, the procedures and principles regarding the tightened measures are to be taken and implemented by the obliged parties against persons with public influence.

Some of the monetary limits under the Regulation on Measures Regarding Prevention of Laundering Proceeds of Crime and Financing of Terrorism (published in the Official Gazette dated January 9, 2008 with the number 26751) (“Regulation”), with respect to customer identification requirements and wire transfer limitations, are increased since February 2023. Regarding customer identification, obliged parties shall identify their customers or those who act on behalf of or for the benefit of their customers by receiving their identification information and verifying it and take necessary measures for revealing the beneficial owner of the transaction if the amount of a single transaction or the total amount of multiple linked transactions is equal to or more than ₺185,000. Previous threshold was ₺85,000. Likewise, in wire transfers, the limit applicable to information requirement is increased to ₺15,000 from ₺7,500.