 has described Turkey’s foreign bribery enforcement record as “abysmal,” finding that the country has never secured a conviction and has opened no new investigations since its 2024 review.){kind=link}
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has described Turkey’s foreign bribery enforcement record as “abysmal,” finding that the country has never secured a conviction and has opened no new investigations since its 2024 review.
The report, adopted by the OECD Working Group on Bribery on June 23 and published July 9, found that Turkey had fully implemented 10 recommendations, partly implemented 12 and failed to implement 49.
Turkey had 23 known allegations involving Turkish people or companies when the OECD completed its main review in 2024. Fifteen had never been investigated, six cases had ended without charges and two had produced acquittals.
Three more allegations have since surfaced, bringing the total to 26, but Turkey has opened no new investigation or prosecutions and has provided no update on its existing cases, the latest review found.
The OECD convention requires countries to criminalize bribes paid or offered by their citizens and companies to public officials abroad to win business or other advantages. Turkey joined in 2000.
The working group was “again dismayed” by the number of unmet recommendations. It found no sign that Turkey would enact a law protecting whistleblowers, no enacted measure allowing companies to be held liable without the conviction of an individual and no system for sending foreign bribery allegations to prosecutors without delay.
Turkish officials told the OECD that they would supply enforcement information after assigning foreign bribery cases to a specific unit in a public prosecutor’s office. The working group called that explanation “unacceptable,” noting that the absence of a designated unit did not relieve Turkey of its duty to investigate or report on cases.
A planned amendment to a Justice Ministry circular would assign cases to bureaus that handle offenses by civil servants and end a requirement that prosecutors notify the ministry when opening an investigation. The changes have not been enacted, do not resolve conflicts between İstanbul and Ankara prosecutors and do not ensure that reports reach prosecutors promptly, according to the OECD.
The review also found no action to shield auditors who report suspected bribery, encourage companies to report themselves, increase investigations of money laundering linked to bribery or ensure that fines and confiscations cannot be deducted from corporate taxes.
The working group again questioned the independence of Turkey’s judiciary. It asked Turkey in 2024 to change the Council of Judges and Prosecutors so that most members would be judges chosen by their peers and that the justice minister and deputy minister would not be part of the body.
Turkey plans a needs analysis and action plan for the council by 2028 but has made no change. It also took no action to protect bribery investigations from national economic interests, relations with another country or the identities involved.
The government pointed to training and administrative measures as progress. It trained 180 judges and prosecutors, issued a guide for Foreign Ministry staff and included foreign bribery in a 2025 assessment of money laundering risks.
Turkey also trained ambassadors, diplomats, police and tax inspectors. Its Financial Crimes Investigation Board received 40 suspicious transaction reports related to foreign bribery from 2024 through 2026, but the OECD found no indication that the reports were of sufficient quality or had led to enforcement action.
Most of the 10 recommendations judged complete concerned training, guidance or awareness. Draft amendments addressing corporate liability, false accounting and fines were welcomed but did not count as implementation because parliament had not enacted them.
The findings follow more than a decade of warnings. The working group adopted exceptional monitoring measures after earlier reviews, voiced concern over weak enforcement in 2017, issued public statements in 2019 and 2021 and found in 2022 that Turkey had made no progress on corporate liability, whistleblower protection, prosecutorial independence or enforcement.
In June 2025 the group again found gaps in reporting procedures and the same unresolved legal issues. The new review shows that none of those priority issues has been completed.
Turkey’s record on corruption began a decline after two investigations became public in December 2013 and implicated four ministers, their family members and the inner circle of then-prime minister and current president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in bribery allegations.
Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government subsequently suppressed the corruption scandal by managing to control the judiciary by creating special criminal courts headed by a single judge, thanks to the AKP’s parliamentary majority.
These judges then jailed all the police and prosecutors who had conducted the 2013 corruption investigations, while Erdoğan and his family members who were implicated have never appeared in court.
The erosion in the rule of law in Turkey worsened after a failed coup in July 2016, when more than 4,000 judges and prosecutors were removed under the pretext of an anti-coup fight.
The AKP government is accused of replacing the purged judicial members with young and inexperienced judges and prosecutors who have close links to the AKP.
The European Commission found in 2015 that perceived executive interference in the 2013 investigations had increased perceptions of corruption. The commission also recorded a fall in corruption investigations, prosecutions and convictions in 2013 and 2014.
Turkey was ranked 53rd among 177 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index in 2013 with 50 points out of 100. It fell to 124th among 182 countries in the 2025 index with 31 points, a decline of 71 places and 19 points.
The index measures how experts and businesspeople view public sector corruption and does not establish misconduct in individual cases. Transparency International associates sustained declines with weakened checks on power, pressure on independent voices and institutions unable to hold officials to account.
The European Commission’s 2025 report on Turkey found no improvement in the investigation, prosecution or conviction of corruption at any level. It identified political financing, the judiciary, public administration, municipalities and construction as areas vulnerable to corruption and criticized exemptions that weaken safeguards in public procurement.
It also said selective prosecutions of opposition mayors undermine trust in the fight against corruption.
The OECD asked Turkey to report again in December on 13 priority recommendations, including a national strategy, whistleblower protection, corporate liability and enforcement. Turkey must also provide annual reports on its foreign bribery cases at working group meetings.