NEWSLETTER-2020-metin

243 ARBITRATION LAW Istanbul Regional Court of Appeal Decisions Regarding Law No. 805 on Mandatory Use of Turkish Language in Arbitration Agreements* Att. Fatih Işık Introduction Law No. 805 was accepted on 10 April 1926, and entered into force through publication in the Official Gazette dated 22 April 1926 and numbered 353. This Law introduced several obligations on Turk- ish commercial enterprises as to the usage of the Turkish language. Simply stated, the Law requires Turkish companies and enterprises to use Turkish in all transactions, agreements, correspondences, accounts and books. This old law contains only nine articles, and its application does not extend to contracts that are to be performed outside of Turkey. Recently, the Turkish Court of Cassation ruled that this Law is also applicable for arbitration agreements and deemed the arbitration agreements in foreign languages to be invalid 1 . In this article, two recent decisions on Law No. 805 and its application to arbitration agreements, of the 12th Chamber of Istanbul Regional Court of Ap- peal (“Court”), will be examined. Shall the Mandatory Use of Turkish Be Applicable when One of the Parties Is Not Turkish? The first decision to be examined in this article is the Court’s decision dated 13.02.2020 and numbered 2020/19 E. and 2020/184 * Article of April, 2020 1 Balıkçı, Melissa : “The Effect of the Turkish Language Requirement on the Va- lidity of Arbitration Agreements,” Erdem & Erdem Newsletter, October, 2018. http://www.erdem-erdem.av.tr/publications/newsletter/the-effect-of-the-turkish- language-requirement-on-the-validity-of-arbitration-agreements/ (Access date: 06.04.2020)