Yonca Fatma YÜCEL
Ms. Yonca Fatma YÜCEL is an international mediator, trainer, and attorney at law. She is registered mediator at the registration board of Ministry of Justice, Turkey. She has “Master Class Certificates on “Commercial Mediation” given by ADR International and “Embodying Emotional Intelligence/CIQ and Neuro-Science” by ADR-ODR International –Claris Coaching, in addition to “Achievement Certificate on Arbitration” by ISTAC. She is the Editor of Journal on Federation of Integrated Conflict Management Media (Online publication) and member and program partner of the Swiss-Chinees Law Association.
She graduated from Ankara University Law Faculty and registered to Ankara Bar Association. Her business carrier was started in the Development Bank of Turkey as a lawyer in 1994 after she took master- degree in Commercial Law and promoted as a senior lawyer in 1998. During this term, she had given legal advices related to many international projects that realized both in Turkey and in abroad with co-operation between Bank and the other international financial institutions/banks. She had made many loan agreements based on international project finance on behalf of mentioned Bank. She had also followed up national and international cases before the courts both in Turkey and an abroad and participated as principal negotiator on the international conflicts between the Bank and the other institutions such as IFC until 2000. Thereafter, she had followed up many cases before the Court of First Instance, the Court of Cassation and Council of State on behalf of Turkish Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BRSA) as founder of legal department. During this period, she had been giving legal advices related to banking/ commercial cases sued against Turkey before European Human Right Court during at almost twenty years’ period until her retirement. Meanwhile, she had worked for re-organizing defaulted loan assets, winding up and preparing core assets sales agreements for Turkish Saving Deposit Insurance Fund of Turkey (SDIF) and given legal advices to the board of BRSA and SDIF related to many civil/public, national and international conflicts. She had made Impact Analysis Survey for evaluating BRSA secondary legislation for two years’ period between in 2006-2007. In addition to, she had joint in different research projects and Basel Implementations based on risk focus as a legal analyzer and prepared different reports for BRSA.
Moreover, considering the international journey of her carrier, she has been Turkish President of Women Interest Group of IBA since 1998 and was the President of National Committee of International of Association of Lawyers (UIA) between in 2007-2012. She had been serving as Counselor to the UIA President between in Dec. 2013.-Nov.2021 in addition to, she was former Web- Director and current Vice President of UIA Banking and Financial Services Committee since Jan.2019, and former Secretary of UIA Mediation and Conflict Prevention Committee between in 2016-2020. She has organized many local and international seminars, forums regarding banking, arbitration, mediation, and conflict prevention, and participated many mediation trainees and international seminars for both in Turkey and in the different countries since 2007. Concerning UIA “Seminar on Mediation and Arbitration”in İstanbul (2007) and UIA “Seminar on Mediation: How to Change Lawyers Mindset” in Ankara (2015) were two mainly important seminars which were assumed effective roles for developing mediation in Turkey. Her article with the same title and “Reflections on Singapore Convention on Mediation” published in “UIA Juriste International” respectively on Jan. 2015 and Nov.2020. She has been giving lectures, trainees regarding general mediation, commercial, banking and finance mediation at many Law Faculties in Turkey as an accredited mediator since 2014 and certified mediation trainer by European Council since 2017. She participated International Mediation Tournament, organized by INADR, among Law Faculty students in Athens on May 14-16, 2016 as a coach of Turkish team and as a judge three times in different countries. One of her team members won the first prize at an individual level at tournament in Athens in 2016. She worked at Mediation and Arbitration Department of Turkish Ministry of Justice (TMOJ) as temporary personnel between in Sept.2016- Sept.2017. During this term, she gave counselling related to legislation workings for both revised Mediation Act and Code on Labor Law at the national level and recent international developments in addition to legal advices for securitization, banking, financing and arbitration laws. She made many workings for adopting to Turkish legislation regarding published on international literature books such as “Effective Mediation Advocacy" and "Preparing for Mediation –A Guide for Consumers" written by Andrew Goodman and "Family Mediation" written by Lisa Parkinson as a chief editor. She gave contributions for preparing Trainee Module for Mediators and “Participants’ and Trainers’ Books by means of the "Project on Developing Mediation Practices in Civil Disputes in Turkey" organized by European Council. For increasing the developing mediators’ abilities and capacities, she worked with the coordinator of "Project on Better Access to Justice” together by kindly sponsoring of British Embassy and she organized many national and international seminars regarding not only for mediation but also arbitration in different cities around Turkey. Lastly, “Seminar on Reflections on the Singapore Convention on Mediation” was the prominent one organized by her on behalf of TMOJ cooperation with UNCITRAL. Her speech and her article with the same title published on “Publication on Seminar” prepared by TMOJ and “Legal Journal”, April 2020 in Turkey.
In addition to her activities above mentioned, she gave presentation regarding Ethnic Mediation during the UIA Annual Congress in Toronto, 2017. For healing of statues of refugees and immigrants for not only in Europe but also at the world, she prepared “UIA Budapest Principle” with her colleagues and announced it to all concerns during the UIA Annual Congress in Budapest, 2016, during her counseling term,
She was the former governing board member of Ankara Toastmasters Club and finished at International Leadership and Mentoring Program and won her achievement certificate at silver level. She participated business coaching trainee by WBECS Group on June-July 2020.
She is, currently, lecturer on LLM Program on Banking Law at the İstanbul Gedik University Law Faculty and partner of Yiğit Yücel Int. Law Firm. Her specialization goes to commercial, banking and finance, securitization, risk analysis, foreign investments, labor and working disputes in the dispute resolution field. She is a native Turkish speaker and is very fluent in English and can communicate in French.