Gönenç Gürkaynak
Founding Partner, ELIG Gürkaynak Attorneys-at-Law
[email protected]
Dr Gönenç Gürkaynak is the founding partner of ELIG Gürkaynak Attorneys-at- Law, a leading law firm of 95 lawyers based in Istanbul, Turkey. Dr Gürkaynak graduated from Ankara University, faculty of law, in 1997 and was called to the Istanbul Bar in 1998. Dr Gürkaynak received his LLM degree from Harvard Law School, and was admitted to the: Istanbul Bar in 1998; American Bar Association in 2002; New York Bar in 2002 (currently non-practising; registered); Brussels Bar in 2003–2004 (B List; not maintained); and Law Society of England & Wales in 2004 (currently non-practising; registered). Before founding ELIG Gürkaynak Attorneys-at-Law in 2005, Dr Gürkaynak worked as an attorney at the Istanbul, New York and Brussels offices of a global law firm for more than eight years.
Dr Gürkaynak heads the competition law and regulatory department of ELIG Gürkaynak Attorneys-at-Law, which currently consists of 56 lawyers. He has unparalleled experience in Turkish competition law counselling issues with more than 25 years of competition law experience, starting with the establishment of the Turkish Competition Authority. Every year, Dr Gürkaynak represents multinational companies and large domestic clients in more than 35 written and oral defences in investigations of the Turkish Competition Authority, about 15 antitrust appeal cases in the high administrative court and over 85 merger clearances of the Turkish Competition Authority, in addition to coordinating various worldwide merger notifications, drafting non-compete agreements and clauses, and preparing hundreds of legal memoranda concerning a wide array of Turkish and European Commission competition law topics.
Dr Gürkaynak frequently speaks at conferences and symposia on competition law matters. He has six books, which are A Discussion on the Prime Objective of the Turkish Competition Law From a Law & Economics Perspective (published by the Turkish Competition Authority), Fundamental Concepts of Anglo-American Law, The Academic Gift Book of ELIG, Attorneys-at-Law in Honor of the 20th Anniversary of Competition Law Practice in Turkey, The Second Academic Gift Book of ELIG Gürkaynak Attorneys-at-Law on Selected Contemporary Competition Law Matters (published by Legal Publishing), Turkish Competition Law (published in November 2021 by Concurrences in Paris) and Rekabet Hukuku (published in October 2022). He has also published more than 200 articles in English and Turkish with various international and local publishers. Dr Gürkaynak holds teaching positions at undergraduate and graduate levels at two universities, and gives lectures at other universities in Turkey.