The Effect of Exchange Contracts on Commercial Law in the Ottoman State

The importance of Commercial Law has increased nowadays. International trade, which is formed as a result of transactions between businesses in different countries, brings results that concern other branches of law as well as Commercial Law. Also, international trade creates legal consequences that concern more than one country due to the parties being in different countries, the results and the disputes. After the increase in the trade volume, the increasing prevalence of policies and other commercial papers necessitated the harmonisation of commercial papers used between states. In order to remove the barriers to international trade, new agreements were signed with institutions such as the World Trade Organization, especially the United Nations and the European Union. This article discusses the efforts to harmonise commercial papers and the Ottoman Empire’s developments. In the second half of the 18th century, it is understood from many documents that the use of exchange bills became widespread with the increase in foreign trade between the Ottoman Empire and Europe. The spread of exchange bills in the Ottoman Empire and frequent disagreements with foreign countries. In order to prevent these disputes, foreign exchange agreements have come to the fore. In this article, based on official data, the content of the 1838, 1843 and 1860 Exchange Treaties and the reasons for their need were examined, depending on the valuable papers used in the Ottoman Empire. The effects of these foreign exchange agreements on trade and commercial law in the Ottoman Empire were examined in general. The effects of the policies implemented by the Ottoman Empire on present-day commercial law are also discussed. In addition, the effect of Europe on trade and commercial law is explained with examples in general.