A foreign court has ruled in the client's favour, and the Turkish counterparty still has not paid. Judgment enforcement in Turkey does not work by importing the foreign order directly – it runs through a domestic recognition action first. We assess the judgment, the debtor's known assets and the strength of the file before recommending whether that action is worth starting.
The starting point is a recognition claim before the competent Turkish civil court, not an application to a bailiff or an execution office. The court examines whether the foreign court had proper jurisdiction under Turkish rules, whether the judgment is final in its country of origin, and whether recognising it would conflict with Turkish public policy. Only once recognition is granted does the judgment become an enforceable domestic title. From that point the file moves into ordinary execution proceedings against the debtor's assets, run through the local execution offices rather than through the original foreign proceeding.
This structure is one reason a Turkish file is best planned alongside the wider cross-border judgment enforcement strategy for the same debtor, particularly where assets are spread across more than one country.
A recognition claim stands or falls on documents, not on the merits of the underlying dispute. The Turkish court will not reopen the original case. What matters is a certified copy of the judgment, evidence that the debtor was properly served in the original proceeding, and confirmation that the judgment is final and not still open to ordinary appeal abroad. Gaps in service or finality are the most common ground on which a Turkish debtor resists recognition.
The usual defences raised by a Turkish counterparty concern jurisdiction of the original court, the adequacy of service, or an argument that enforcement would offend Turkish public policy. A file that anticipates these points before filing moves faster than one that reacts to them afterward, which is why we compare the position against the broader creditor position in Turkey before committing to the action.
Where a pre-legal collection step is pursued before any court filing, that step is carried out by a registered provider operating under Turkish law, not by SOLUTIO directly. This keeps the file within the local regulatory framework for collection activity and avoids a step that would otherwise expose the client to challenge later in the recognition proceeding. The fee basis for the Turkish stage of the work, including the correspondent's involvement, is agreed with the client before instruction rather than fixed as a share of any later recovery.
SOLUTIO does not appear before the Turkish court. That work sits with admitted lawyers and licensed providers in Turkey, briefed on the file and instructed on the client's behalf. Our role is to build the file before it crosses the border, to confirm the judgment meets the documentary requirements above, to select and brief the correspondent, and to monitor the recognition and execution stages once filed. The client takes each decision – whether to file, whether to appeal an adverse ruling, whether to pursue a particular asset – on our assessment of the correspondent's reporting, not on a separate account from the correspondent alone.
Where one of these applies, we say so before any filing is made, rather than after the correspondent's first invoice.
No. A recognition action before a Turkish civil court comes first. Only once the court grants recognition does the judgment become a domestic title that can be sent for execution against the debtor's assets.
The timeline depends on how quickly the debtor contests recognition and on the workload of the court seized with the claim. We describe the expected shape of the timeline for a specific file once we have reviewed the judgment and the debtor's likely defences.
Recognition without an asset to execute against produces a title with no practical value. We check the debtor's position in Turkey before recommending the action, and we say plainly when that position does not support pursuing it.
The judgment sitting unenforced does not sit still – assets move, other creditors file first, and the debtor's balance sheet in Turkey can look very different a year after judgment than it did on the day it was handed down. Deciding whether the recognition route is worth starting is a question for the file now, not after the position has changed further.