Mandatory Mediation in Turkish Law

Over the past several years, Türkiye has moved a growing share of civil disputes out of the courtroom and into mediation. For an expanding list of matters, mediation is no longer optional: it is a precondition to filing suit (dava şartı arabuluculuk). A claimant who goes straight to court in one of these areas will have the case dismissed on procedural grounds, without a judge ever looking at the merits. For anyone doing business or resolving a dispute under Turkish law, knowing where the rule bites — and how the process actually runs — is now a practical necessity, not a technicality.

What “Mandatory Mediation” Means

Mandatory mediation is a filter placed before litigation. Before a claimant can lodge certain lawsuits, the parties must first attempt to settle through a court-registered mediator. Only if that attempt fails, or the other side does not attend, may the dispute proceed to court. The mediator does not decide anything and does not impose a solution; the role is to help the parties reach their own agreement and to certify, at the end, whether they did.

The framework sits within the Law on Mediation in Civil Disputes No. 6325, supplemented by the sector statutes that added each new category. The two ideas to keep separate are voluntary mediation, which parties can always choose for almost any civil matter, and mandatory mediation, which the law forces on specific categories as a gateway to the courtroom. This guide is about the second.

Which Disputes Are Covered

The scope has widened in successive stages, and the direction of travel is clearly toward more categories, not fewer:

• Labour claims (since 2018) — introduced through the Labour Courts Law No. 7036, covering most employee and employer claims for compensation and receivables arising from the employment relationship, including reinstatement claims after dismissal. Severance, notice pay, unpaid wages and overtime disputes all pass through mediation first.
• Commercial monetary claims (since 2019) — extended by legislation amending the Turkish Commercial Code No. 6102, covering commercial lawsuits for the payment of a receivable or for compensation, including disputes between merchants and those concerning commercial enterprises. For a foreign supplier chasing an unpaid invoice from a Turkish company, this is usually the applicable route.
• Consumer disputes (since 2020) — brought under the Consumer Protection Law No. 6502 for claims above the threshold that falls outside the jurisdiction of the consumer arbitration committees (tüketici hakem heyetleri). Smaller consumer claims still go to those committees rather than mediation.
• Certain rental, partnership and neighbour disputes (since September 2023) — a further expansion covering lease and eviction disputes, disputes over the dissolution of joint ownership (ortaklığın giderilmesi), and neighbour-law claims. A landlord seeking eviction, or a co-owner wanting to force a sale of jointly held property, now starts here.

Category	Mandatory since	Typical disputes
Labour	2018	Severance, notice pay, wages, overtime, reinstatement
Commercial	2019	Unpaid invoices, receivables, commercial compensation
Consumer	2020	Consumer claims above the arbitration-committee threshold
Rental, partnership, neighbour	September 2023	Eviction, dissolution of joint ownership, neighbour-law claims

Matters that only a judge can decide — for example, the validity of certain status or enforcement decisions — are excluded from the mediation requirement. If you are unsure which side of the line your dispute falls on, that classification question is itself worth checking with a lawyer before you spend anything.

How the Process Works

The claimant applies to the mediation bureau (arabuluculuk bürosu) attached to the local courthouse — a short, standardised application, not a full pleading. The bureau assigns a registered mediator from the official roster, who then contacts the parties and arranges the meetings. Meetings can take place in person, online, or through an authorised representative, which is what makes the process realistic for parties who are not physically in Türkiye.

The process is deliberately fast. It generally must be completed within a fixed period running from the mediator’s appointment — a matter of weeks — extendable by a short additional period where the circumstances justify it. That speed is the point: a Turkish civil lawsuit can run for years across first instance and appeal, whereas mediation is designed to reach an answer in a fraction of that time. If the parties settle, the mediator draws up a final report recording the agreement; if they do not, the mediator issues a report confirming that mediation was attempted and failed, which is the document you attach to your subsequent court claim.

Protecting Your Deadlines

Applying for mediation suspends limitation and forfeiture periods until the mediator prepares the final report. This is one of the most valuable — and most overlooked — features of the system. A claimant does not risk losing a claim to time-bar simply because the mandatory mediation step is under way. In practice, if a limitation deadline is approaching and litigation is not yet ready, a prompt mediation application can preserve the claim while the parties talk.

If a deadline is closing in and you are not ready to sue, applying for mediation stops the clock. Filing the application is often the single most protective step you can take.

Consequences of Not Attending

Attendance carries real weight, and this is where parties most often go wrong. If a party fails to join the first meeting without a valid excuse, that party bears the full litigation costs even if it ultimately succeeds in court, and cannot recover attorney fees for that stage. The sanction is deliberate: it stops parties treating the process as an empty formality to be waited out. Even a party that expects to win should attend, because the cost consequences of skipping the meeting can outweigh the value of the victory.

Fees and Enforcement

Mediation fees are, as a rule, shared equally unless the parties agree otherwise. Where the parties do not settle, the mediator’s fee for the initial hours is met from the budget of the Ministry of Justice, keeping the entry cost genuinely low compared with the court fees and expert costs of full litigation.

A successful mediation produces a powerful result. The signed settlement, once endorsed with an enforceability annotation, can be enforced in the same way as a court judgment, and it bars a fresh lawsuit on the same subject between the same parties. That combination — low cost to start, binding force at the finish — is why a well-run mediation frequently delivers a better commercial outcome than litigation.

Treat the settlement text as seriously as a court order. Because it is directly enforceable, a loose or ambiguous clause is a problem you cannot fix later by “explaining what you really meant.”

In practice, the drafting stage is where most value is won or lost. A well-drafted settlement specifies exactly who pays what, by when, in which currency and to which account, and what happens on default — for example, that the whole balance falls due if one instalment is missed. Vague formulas such as “the parties will cooperate” or “payment will be made as soon as possible” are invitations to a second dispute. Insist on concrete, dated, enforceable obligations before you sign.

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Why It Matters for Foreign Parties

For foreign investors and companies, the mandatory step is easy to overlook and expensive to miss. Filing in the wrong sequence means a dismissal and a fresh start — lost time, lost fees, and a signal to the other side that you were not properly advised. Handled well, mediation is usually faster and cheaper than a full trial, can be conducted remotely, and produces an outcome that is directly enforceable in Türkiye and, through the settlement’s binding nature, a solid basis for enforcement elsewhere.

There is also a strategic dimension. Because attendance is compulsory and non-attendance is penalised, the first meeting is a rare moment when a reluctant counterparty is required to sit at the table. A prepared party — one that arrives with a clear number, the supporting documents, and a lawyer who knows the file — can often resolve in a single session what would otherwise take years of litigation.

Practical Takeaways

• Confirm before filing whether your dispute falls within the mandatory categories; the classification question can be decisive.
• Treat the first meeting as unavoidable — non-attendance is penalised in costs even for the eventual winner.
• Use the limitation-suspension rule to protect claims that are near a deadline; a prompt application stops the clock.
• Remember that a settlement is enforceable like a judgment, so negotiate and draft its terms with the same care you would a court order.
• Come prepared: the compulsory first meeting is your best chance to resolve the whole dispute quickly and on your terms.

If you are unsure whether mediation is a precondition to your claim, or how to structure a settlement so it holds, take advice before you file. The cost of getting the sequence wrong is a dismissed case; the reward for getting it right is often a faster, cheaper and equally binding resolution.