Mr. Gönenç Gürkaynak is the founding partner of ELIG Gürkaynak Attorneys-at-Law, a leading law firm of 95 lawyers based in Istanbul, Turkey. Mr. Gürkaynak graduated from Ankara University, Faculty of Law in 1997. Mr. Gürkaynak received his LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School, and his Bar memberships are as follows: Istanbul Bar, 1997; American Bar Association, 2001; New York Bar, 2001 (currently non-practising; registered); Brussels Bar, 2003 - 2004 (B List; not maintained); Member of the Law Society of England & Wales, 2004 (currently non-practising; registered). Before founding ELIG Gürkaynak Attorneys-at-Law in 2005, Mr. Gürkaynak worked as an attorney at the Istanbul, New York and Brussels offices of a global law firm for more than eight years. Mr. Gürkaynak heads the competition law and regulatory department of ELIG Gürkaynak Attorneys-at-Law, which currently consists of 53 lawyers. He has unparalleled experience in Turkish competition law counseling issues with more than 25 years of competition law experience, starting with the establishment of the Turkish Competition Authority. Every year Mr. Gürkaynak represents multinational companies and large domestic clients in more than 35 written and oral defences in investigations of the Turkish Competition Authority, about 15 antitrust appeal cases in the high administrative court, and over 85 merger clearances of the Turkish Competition Authority, in addition to coordinating various worldwide merger notifications, drafting non-compete agreements and clauses, and preparing hundreds of legal memoranda concerning a wide array of Turkish and EC competition law topics. Mr. Gürkaynak frequently speaks at conferences and symposia on competition law matters. He has published more than 200 articles in English and Turkish by various international and local publishers.