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Written by Ahmet Koçak & Berke Demircioğlu, founding partners of

The inaugural Istanbul Arbitration Days organised by Istanbul Arbitration Centre (ISTAC), held from April 17th to April 20th, 2024, garnered significant attention with participants hailing from diverse jurisdictions. Speakers representing different jurisdictions and a wide array of events catered to the 500+ registered participants. The historic Pera Palace Hotel hosted the Istanbul Arbitration Days’ opening reception on April 17.

The primary conference day, April 18, placed particular emphasis on arbitration and technology.

On the third panel of the first day titled Effects of Technological Developments in the Arbitration World, expertly moderated by Dr. Can Eken, Assistant Professor and Director of the LLM Programme in Durham University, Doğan Eymirlioğlu, Partner at BASEAK, Esen Aydın, Senior Project Manager at Jus Mundi, Andrew Mackenzie, Chief Executive of Scottish Arbitration Centre, and Vincent Slingerland from Lexis Nexis shared their insights on the effects of technological developments in the arbitration process.

The speakers at the panel shared what innovations artificial intelligence has brought to the world of arbitration. They explained how artificial intelligence has changed things within their own institutions.

The attendees were delighted to hear Vincent Slingerland, Business Development Manager at Lexis Nexis, explaining how Lexis Nexis adapted with the evolving technology in law. Vincent mentioned that with its 200-year history, Lexis Nexis currently provides users with access to 144 petabytes of information in a fast, accurate and reliable way. Vincent informed that 64% of law firms have an AI tool helping them in their legal searches, and the next step of the generative AI is AI authoring legal texts for example by providing summaries of cases and parties’ positions etc.

AI is so evolving in the law sector that big law firms are even developing their own AI by hiring engineers. Similarly, arbitration institutions are using electronic case management systems created by AI. During the panel, it was revealed that AI may be used in identifying conflicted statements in a party’s pleadings or in the same person’s witness statements, and that a psychological reading of pleadings is possible through AI. On the other hand, confidentiality concerns were raised by the speakers during the session, and it is suggested that lawyers should give significant attention to the terms of use of AI tools.

In the first day of the conference, the keynote speech, Recent Developments in International Dispute Resolution, was presented by Gary Born, the chair of the International Arbitration Practice Group at WilmerHale and a member of International Committee of Istanbul Arbitration Centre.

The last panel of the first day of the conference focussed on construction arbitration. Ekrem Kaya, Partner at HKA, shared enlightening statistics related to disputes arising from construction projects.

The second day of the conference kicked off with the Arbitral Women Breakfast Panel event, providing participants with a fantastic networking opportunity.

The main focus of the second day of the conference was recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards in the region. The second panel of the second day of the conference, April 19, bringing attention to the same topic, was moderated by Danny Rifaat from Ternier Pic, included Karim Nassif, Principal at Nassif Arbitration, Prof. Dr. Cemile Demir Gökyayla, Partner, Head of Arbitration/ADR at KP Law, Josh Rievman, Partner at Dunning Rievman & MacDonald LLP, and Dr. Mehmet Karlı, Partner at Kabine Law Firm.

After emphasizing a positive trend in the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Türkiye, Mehmet Karlı addressed three main problems encountered in practice. Referring to current court decisions in his presentation, he noted that there is still a lack of uniformity on whether court fees incurred in applications to courts for the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Türkiye should be pro rata or fixed. Another issue highlighted by Mehmet Karlı in his presentation was the consequences of the absence of the arbitration agreement in the Turkish language during the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Türkiye. He also pointed out the court’s approach of the application of Turkish public policy during the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Türkiye. These last two issues indeed stand out as important topics that need to be addressed separately in further studies.

As the GC Cocktail at the Basilica Cistern marked the end of the conference's second day, side events continued on Saturday. 

Overall, the superbly well attended and organised event was a great success for both regional networking and the promotion of arbitration in Türkiye.