Urgent Asset Protection in Turkey During International Arbitration: Court Injunctions, Attachments and Law No. 4686 Article 6

1. Scope: Turkish-seated arbitration and foreign-seated proceedings

Before choosing a remedy, establish which arbitration law governs the proceedings. Article 1 of Law No. 4686 applies to disputes involving a foreign element where Türkiye is the arbitral seat, or where the statute has been selected in the manner specified by that article. Article 2 identifies the relevant foreign connections. Foreign nationality alone is not the only connection: the parties’ establishments, international performance and movement of capital or goods also require examination.

Article 1 expressly extends Articles 5 and 6 to arbitration seated outside Türkiye. Consequently, a London, Paris or Geneva seat does not itself prevent a Turkish judicial application for protective relief. That extension is specific: it is not a declaration that every procedural article of Law No. 4686 governs every foreign-seated arbitration. In particular, the scope of Article 10(A) must be established independently before its thirty-day commencement rule is applied to a foreign-seat file.

The statute excludes disputes about rights in rem over immovable property in Türkiye and matters outside the parties’ disposition. Counsel must distinguish a contractual money claim involving a property transaction from a claim requiring a change of ownership in the Turkish land register. Article 6 does not cure an invalid arbitration agreement or make a non-arbitrable claim arbitrable. The official enacted text of Law No. 4686 states the scope and cross-border extension expressly.

2. An injunction and a provisional attachment protect different interests

An interim injunction, called ihtiyati tedbir, protects the disputed right against a change that threatens effective judicial protection. HMK Article 389 addresses a substantial difficulty or impossibility in obtaining the right, or serious harm caused by delay. The applicant must identify the right and the threatened change. Merely describing the counterparty as financially unreliable does not establish every element of an injunction.

A provisional attachment, called ihtiyati haciz, is the separate mechanism for securing qualifying monetary claims. İİK Article 257 begins with a money debt that is due and not secured by a pledge; it also provides narrowly defined grounds concerning debts not yet due. Securing unpaid invoices therefore requires a different legal analysis from preserving the condition of identified goods or preventing a change to the object of a proprietary dispute.

The application should connect each requested restriction to a statutory purpose. A broad request to freeze every transaction must not substitute for identifying the claim, debtor, relevant property and amount. The arbitral demand and protective petition should use consistent figures. Interest, principal, contractual penalties and consequential losses should be separately explained rather than combined into an unexplained headline sum. This makes the court’s examination more precise and makes the requested order operationally intelligible.

3. What the tribunal can order, and what it cannot

Under Article 6, unless the parties agree otherwise, the tribunal can grant an interim injunction or provisional attachment at a party’s request during arbitration. It can condition that relief on appropriate security. However, the same provision prevents arbitrators from issuing measures that require implementation by compulsory enforcement bodies or other public authorities, and measures binding third parties.

This limitation matters for bank accounts, registries and assets held by persons who are not parties to the arbitration. A tribunal’s direction to a contracting party is not automatically an enforceable command to that party’s bank. Nor does an arbitral order itself authorize a Turkish enforcement officer to seize property. The necessary judicial route must be selected and its statutory conditions established.

Before seeking relief, identify the person who must perform the desired action. A request that one contracting party preserve documents within its control differs from a compulsory order directed to an independent record-holder. A request concerning a bank, land registry or enforcement office raises the public-authority and third-party limits directly. The wording of the application should reflect those limits instead of promising a coercive effect that the tribunal cannot supply.

4. Article 3 must be read with Additional Article 1

Article 3 identifies the respondent’s Turkish domicile, habitual residence or business as territorial connections for judicial work assigned by Law No. 4686. If the respondent has none of those connections in Türkiye, the provision identifies Istanbul. But the original Article 3 wording cannot be used alone to say that every application belongs to an asliye hukuk mahkemesi.

Additional Article 1 requires the powers and duties assigned to the civil court of first instance to be exercised by the civil or commercial court of first instance according to the subject matter. Law No. 7101 Article 54 introduced that provision. A commercial arbitration file therefore requires an express asliye ticaret assessment. The official amending law must be read alongside the original enactment.

Subject-matter competence and territorial venue remain separate. The specific injunction or attachment route also has its own procedural provisions. The presence of a Turkish bank account is not a universal jurisdiction rule for adjudicating the merits. The petition should explain the legal source of the court’s authority, the respondent’s relevant connection, the dispute’s commercial or civil character and the particular protective measure requested.

5. Evidence for an injunction: HMK Articles 389–391

HMK Article 390(3) requires the applicant to identify clearly the reason for and type of interim measure and make out the asserted right on a prima-facie basis. The evidence should address both the right and the danger. An arbitration notice proves that a dispute has been raised, but does not by itself prove imminent harm. A substantial contract value is likewise not proof that the disputed property is about to change irreversibly.

An effective evidence schedule separates contractual documents from urgency documents. The first group establishes the transaction, obligations and alleged breach. The second explains what is changing, when that change is expected and why ordinary progress of the arbitration would not protect the right adequately. Dated correspondence, disposal notices, inspection records and relevant public-register entries should be linked to the precise proposition they support.

HMK Article 391 governs the content and forms of protective decisions. The proposed measure should identify its object and practical effect. A petition should not ask the court to assume unspecified facts or restrain unrelated entities. Narrow drafting is not a concession on the merits; it makes it possible to test whether the requested protection corresponds to the documented risk and the statutory purpose.

6. Evidence for provisional attachment: İİK Articles 257–258

For an ordinary due monetary debt, the creditor must address the conditions in İİK Article 257, including the absence of pledge security. Article 258 requires evidence sufficient to persuade the court about the claim and any specific ground relied upon. A creditor should identify the actual debtor, contractual source, maturity date, unpaid balance and documentary chain. Group membership does not make every affiliated company the debtor.

For a debt not yet due, the statute specifies additional circumstances, including the absence of a fixed domicile or conduct directed toward concealing property, fleeing or defeating creditors. An international business address or a foreign shareholder is not, by itself, proof of those circumstances. The petition must explain which statutory ground is invoked and exhibit facts supporting it.

Provide a transparent calculation. Distinguish deliveries that were accepted from those that remain contested, and account for partial payments and credits. Identify the currency of each contractual obligation. A creditor seeking security for an amount claimed in arbitration still has to establish the attachment conditions; the tribunal’s registration of the claim is not a judicial finding that the full claimed sum is attachable.

7. Security is a separate procedural issue

HMK Article 392 regulates security for losses that an unjustified injunction could cause to the opposing party or third persons, together with the exceptions and reasoning required by the provision. İİK Article 259 contains the separate attachment-security framework, including treatment of judgments and judgment-equivalent documents. There is no sound basis for presenting a single fixed percentage as the universal statutory deposit for every application.

The applicant’s budget should distinguish the claim amount, court charges, implementation expenses, translations and the security fixed for the order. Security does not establish the merits of the claim. Conversely, the existence of a strong contractual case does not automatically remove a statutory security obligation.

A request should also consider the consequences of an unjustified restraint. Disruption to a business account or disposal of goods can produce measurable loss. The file should therefore preserve the evidence available when relief was requested, the reasons for the requested scope and the steps taken after the order. Accurate documentation serves both the application and any later dispute about whether the protection was justified.

8. Three different deadlines: one week, ten days and thirty days

Injunction implementation: HMK Article 393 requires the applicant to request implementation within one week from pronouncement or notification of the decision to that applicant. Failure causes the injunction to lapse even where the substantive action was brought within its own statutory time. The receipt record and implementation request therefore belong in the same deadline schedule.

Attachment implementation: İİK Article 261 requires a request for execution within ten days from the date of the attachment decision, through the enforcement office in the deciding court’s judicial district. The provision uses the decision date, not a general rule based on subsequent service. This implementation requirement is distinct from commencing the merits proceedings.

Commencement of arbitration: where Article 10(A) of Law No. 4686 governs, a party that obtains an injunction or provisional attachment must commence arbitration within thirty days; otherwise the protection automatically ceases. Do not replace this special arbitration rule with an unexplained statement that the ordinary seven-day follow-up period in İİK Article 264 always governs. Nor does the thirty-day commencement period extend the separate one-week or ten-day implementation requirement.

For a foreign-seated arbitration, Article 1 expressly extends Article 6 but does not automatically extend Article 10(A). Identify the law governing commencement and the applicable Turkish preservation procedure separately. A deadline schedule should record the judicial decision, pronouncement or service, execution request and legally effective arbitral commencement as distinct events, with a document proving each event.

9. Sending a demand is not always commencing arbitration

Article 10(A) first respects the parties’ agreement on commencement. In the absence of a different agreement, it identifies concrete events. These include applying to the court or agreed appointing person or institution for selection of arbitrators; selecting one’s own arbitrator and notifying the other party to select theirs where that is the agreed method; or receipt by the other party of the request to arbitrate where the arbitrator or arbitrators are named in the agreement.

A lawyer should therefore read the arbitration clause and incorporated rules before deciding that a demand letter preserves a court measure. A letter requesting payment, a draft request circulated internally and a filed arbitration request are not interchangeable. The file must establish which event constitutes commencement under the applicable arrangement and when that event occurred.

Preserve submission receipts, appointment communications and delivery records in their native format. A commercial team’s verbal statement that arbitration has started is not a substitute for the procedural record. Where an institution administers the arbitration, its applicable rules and actual receipt record must be examined. This is a document-based question, not a reason to promise that any email will satisfy Article 10(A).

10. Court assistance when an arbitral order is ignored

Article 6 expressly allows the opposing party to request judicial assistance through an injunction or attachment application when a party fails to comply with a protective order issued by the tribunal. The competent court can, where necessary, seek assistance from another court. This is a route to judicial protection, not automatic compulsory execution of every line of the arbitral order.

The application should include the order, the arbitration agreement, proof of communication and the evidence of non-compliance. It must also identify the particular domestic remedy requested and explain why its conditions are met. The court cannot be asked simply to treat a non-party as bound by an arbitration agreement to which it did not become a party.

The drafting exercise is practical: translate the protection sought into an order that Turkish institutions can lawfully implement. Identify the property or obligation, the persons affected, the requested period and the relationship to the pending arbitration. A focused application reduces the risk that a genuine need for protection is obscured by a request extending beyond the available statutory powers.

11. Interim relief is not final award enforcement

The final paragraph of Article 6 provides that the specified court-granted protection ceases automatically when the arbitral award becomes enforceable or when the tribunal rejects the case. Interim protection therefore cannot be treated as an indefinite substitute for a final enforceable title. The transition from an interim order to enforcement must be planned.

The route depends on the legal character of the award. A foreign arbitral award raises recognition and enforcement questions different from a protective application during arbitration. The New York Convention and applicable Turkish enforcement legislation must be addressed in the proper proceeding. This article concerns protection before the merits result is effectively enforceable, not a complete award-enforcement procedure.

For that separate stage, consult our guide to enforcing a foreign arbitral award in Türkiye. Do not assume that obtaining an attachment resolves notice defects, arbitrability objections or other issues arising at the enforcement stage. Each procedural decision performs a different function and requires its own evidence.

12. The overseas claimant’s document package

Start with the signed contract, arbitration clause, amendments and the relevant institutional rules. Identify the claimant and respondent by their exact legal names rather than trading brands. Add the documents establishing authority to instruct counsel and the power of attorney required for the Turkish judicial application. Our foreign-company authority guide explains that distinct representation issue.

The financial record should include invoices, delivery or acceptance records, payment receipts, credit notes and a calculation reconciling those documents. The urgency record should be indexed separately. Documents relied on as proof should be complete enough to show dates, counterparties and context, rather than selected screenshots that conceal the surrounding exchange.

Authentication and translation must be addressed for each relevant foreign instrument. An apostille concerns the authenticity of a public document’s origin; it is not a judicial finding that the asserted debt exists. Keep originals and electronic originals available. A concise chronology explaining what each exhibit proves is more useful than an unstructured volume of records whose connection to the legal test is unclear.

13. Responding to an unjustified protective order

The respondent should first identify the statutory route and obtain the actual order, petition and available supporting evidence. For an injunction, review the asserted right, urgency and security under HMK Articles 389–392. For attachment, examine maturity, pledge security, debt identity, amount and the grounds in İİK Articles 257–259. Review the execution record separately.

Distinguish an objection to deciding the merits in court from an objection to interim relief. Article 6 permits judicial protective assistance notwithstanding an arbitration clause, so repeating the clause alone does not answer the protective application. Equally, the applicant cannot use that article to obtain a final determination of the entire arbitrable dispute through an interim petition.

The appropriate objection, variation or lifting procedure depends on the order and the applicable procedural provisions. Record its pronouncement, service and execution dates immediately. Show documentary errors precisely: a paid invoice, a different debtor, a pledged claim or property belonging to an independent person should be supported by the relevant records. Do not assume that a merits disagreement automatically removes a protective order without a procedural decision.

14. Türkiye-wide coordination from Istanbul and Mersin

An overseas business can coordinate document preparation and instruct an authorized Turkish lawyer for the judicial application. Article 8(B) permits foreign representation in the arbitration but expressly excludes arbitration-related court requests from that permission. The arbitral team and Turkish court counsel should therefore agree on responsibilities, deadlines and evidence handling before relief is sought.

Bakırcı & Keskin Law Office coordinates Türkiye-related matters from its physical offices in Istanbul (Maslak/Sarıyer) and Mersin (Akdeniz). The correct court is determined by the legal rules, not by the office’s location. Case assessment begins with the arbitration agreement, identity and authority records, the claim calculation, urgency evidence and the proposed restraint. See our international contract-dispute guide for the wider merits context and the English services and contact page for communication.

No statutory provision guarantees collection simply because interim protection is available. A responsible application separates the existence of the claim, entitlement to provisional relief, implementation and eventual recovery. Each step must be supported by the actual file, with no assumption that nationality, claim size or a foreign arbitral seat determines the result alone.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

Consolidated International Arbitration Law No. 4686; TBMM original enactment; Law No. 7101, Article 54; Ministry of Justice Code of Civil Procedure text; Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law No. 2004. The original TBMM enactment must be read with later amendments; it is not itself a consolidated text.

Author: Attorney Halil Bakırcı, Mersin Bar Association Registration No. 3472, Bakırcı & Keskin Law Office. Legal-source review: 7 November 2026. This guide explains the statutory framework; an actual application requires the contract, evidence and procedural dates to be examined together.