Global Risk Spotlight Series: DWF's Exclusive Association with OGB Istanbul, Turkey

OGB stands for Ozkan, Gurden, Bingol Attorneys. We are a full-service law firm and have been established for many years in Istanbul with strong links to both the business and insurance communities.

During 2015, we began collaborating with DWF and the relationship became stronger and stronger until a formal, exclusive association was entered into in 2018. OGB now works very closely with DWF offices across Europe and the Middle East in a range of areas including property, energy and construction insurance disputes as well as commercial matters.

We have a range of clients and are very proud of the work we do for them. 

We regularly work with insurers, both locally and internationally. For example, we have been working with Liberty Insurance for many years as well as with Zurich across lines of business. Our dispute resolution team has wide ranging experience across different forums. We were pleased to attend and present at Istanbul Arbitration Week last year. 

We are also very proud of our work with the Turkish Football industry. In 2022, we advised a London based investment firm on the first-ever foreign acquisition in a professional Turkish football club. 

We continue to provide advice on a regular basis to Fenerbahçe Sports Club and their group companies on many corporate and commercial areas, including capital market, corporate governance, intellectual property, employment and regulatory matters.

On the litigation front, we combine experience with local market knowledge when advising our clients. We have worked extensively across energy and construction disputes relating to a wide variety of matters including renewable energy and rail.  

We represent major groups in the energy sector in relation to disputes stemming from renewable energy projects.

Recently, we successfully issued a preliminary injunction in relation to the properties of a consortium which carries out some of the biggest construction projects in Türkiye.  

We also continue to represent a client who is a leading rail logistics specialist in Europe and Asia in a claim for compensation and damages arising from a railway accident.

Since 2018, as well as being a partner at OGB, I have been teaching Cyber Law at the Bogazici University in Istanbul and am a faculty member at the Department of Management & Information Systems. 

OGB is advising increasingly in areas such as data-protection, cyber risk and crypto-currency. This is undoubtedly an area of interest and emerging risk for insurers globally.

The use of information technology has increased due to digital transformation. Like other sectors, insurance groups globally tend to be a natural target for cyber-attacks because they possess substantial amounts of data including personal data, product information, policies and pricing, etc. That said, areas such as crypto-currency insurance provide a new playing field for the insurance sector in maturing cryptocurrency markets.