Evaluations on the Current Amendments in the Turkish Commercial Code Regarding Bearer Shares Within the Framework of Recommendation 24 of Financial Action Task Force (FATF)

Abstract

Turkey is one of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) member countries and has been evaluated from various perspectives in line with its Recommendations. The 24th Recommendation in force as of 2022 is related to transparency and beneficial ownership of legal persons. In this recommendation, it is stated that countries should prevent bearer shares from being used for money laundering and terrorist financing. In the Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) (https://www.fatf gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/reports/mer4/Mutual-Evaluation-Report-Turkey-2019.pdf, page 205 (accessed 20 April 2022)) of 2019, Turkey has been criticized that bearer shares are suitable for use for terrorist financing and money laundering. In order to eliminate these criticisms and to prevent the use of bearer shares for terrorist financing and money laundering, Turkey has made some changes in the Turkish Commercial Code (TCC) with Code No. 7262 on 31 December 2020, to be entered into force as of 1 April 2021. In this article, first of all, the situation before these changes in Turkish law will be explained, and then information will be given about these amendments. Finally, considering the last report of FATF on Turkey dated 2021, the current situation regarding bearer shares will be discussed.