Dr. Gönenç Gürkaynak is the founding partner of ELIG Gürkaynak Attorneys-at-Law, a leading law firm of 95 lawyers based in Istanbul, Turkey. He is also an academician, teaching law & economics, and competition law at undergraduate and graduate levels at the University College London (UCL) Faculty of Laws as an honorary professor and at Bilkent University Faculty of Law in Turkey as a visiting professor.
Dr. Gürkaynak graduated from Ankara University Faculty of Law in 1997 and was called to the Istanbul Bar in 1998. Dr. Gürkaynak received his LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School and his Doctor of Philosophy in Law (Ph.D.) degree from UCL Faculty of Laws. Before founding ELIG Gürkaynak Attorneys-at-Law in 2005, Dr. Gürkaynak worked as an attorney at the Istanbul, New York, and Brussels offices of a global law firm for more than eight years. In addition to his membership to the Istanbul Bar since 1998, he was admitted to the American Bar Association in 2002; New York Bar in 2002 (currently non-practicing; registered); Brussels Bar in 2003–2004 (B List; not maintained); Law Society of England & Wales in 2004 (currently non-practicing; registered).
In addition to his continuing private practice as an attorney, primarily through ELIG Gürkaynak Attorneys-at-Law in Istanbul, Dr. Gürkaynak is an honorary professor of practice at UCL Faculty of Laws in London. In addition to his academic role at University College London, he also teaches competition law at Bilkent University Faculty of Law in Ankara since 2005, and he has taught competition law in more than ten universities in Turkey, the EU, the UK, and the US in the last eighteen years.
Dr. Gürkaynak is also a senior research fellow at the Centre for Law, Economics and Society (CLES) at UCL Faculty of Laws.
Dr. Gürkaynak frequently speaks at international conferences and symposia on competition law matters. He has authored four books and over 80 academic articles published in refereed international law journals.