When enforcement of a foreign award is sought in Türkiye, the weight of the file shifts from the award to its annexes: the arbitration agreement, appointment correspondence, procedural orders and finality documents. The reason is that the statute lists the refusal grounds in eight subparagraphs, most of which look at procedure. This page groups them and shows where the burden of proof sits.
Grounds about the agreement
The opening subparagraphs of article 62(1) look at the basis of the arbitration: no arbitration agreement concluded or no arbitration clause inserted in the main contract (a); the dispute not being capable of arbitration under Turkish law (c); the arbitration agreement or clause being invalid under the law to which the parties subjected it or, absent such agreement, under the law of the country where the award was made (e). These grounds bring contract documents into the file. An arbitration clause is often a single article inside a long commercial contract: the whole article and its number are rendered, and cross-references to other articles are kept.
Grounds about procedure and representation
A second group looks at the conduct of the arbitration: a party not having been duly represented before the arbitrators and not having expressly accepted the acts performed afterwards (ç); the party against whom enforcement is sought not having been duly informed of the appointment of the arbitrators or having been deprived of the opportunity to present its case (d); the appointment of the arbitrators or the procedure they applied being contrary to the parties’ agreement or, absent such agreement, to the law of the country where the award was made (f). When these are raised, notices, e-mail printouts and procedural orders enter the file; timestamps, senders and recipients are rendered in full and their formats are not changed.
Grounds about scope and finality
The last two subparagraphs look at the award itself: the award concerning a matter not covered by the arbitration agreement or clause, or exceeding its limits, in which case refusal concerns that part (g); and the award not having become final, not having acquired enforceability or binding force, or having been set aside by the competent authority of the place where it was made (h). The words “that part” in (g) are not dropped: refusal may be partial. For (h), finality or setting-aside documents obtained from the foreign country are filed, and the authority names in them stay in the source language.
Morality and public policy
Subparagraph (b) covers awards contrary to morality or public policy. Unlike the enforcement condition for court judgments, this wording includes morality and does not contain the word “manifestly”. The difference is preserved in translation rather than harmonised with the wording used elsewhere.
Burden of proof and exhibit order
Article 62(2) allocates the burden: the matters in subparagraphs (ç), (d), (e), (f), (g) and (h) are to be proved by the party against whom enforcement is sought. That paragraph explains why the respondent files a thick bundle. In translation, subparagraph letters and paragraph numbers are preserved. The most frequent formatting mistake in such files is renumbering the exhibits: exhibit numbers and the references in the pleadings stay as they are, so that two numbering systems do not arise in two languages. Judicial and legal documents are at no stage placed in a free machine translation or artificial intelligence service. Acte Tercüme translates arbitration agreements, awards and the procedural correspondence filed in enforcement proceedings into English.