Burcu Can

Head of Regulatory & Competition at Kia Europe

Speaker

Burcu Can has over 16 years of experience in competition law and compliance matters, including public service, private practice and inhouse roles.

Burcu started her career as a case handler at the Turkish Competition Authority where she spent more than 5 years. During her time at the Authority, she took part in high-profile antitrust and merger cases concerning banking, finance, motor vehicles and transportation sectors. She was also involved in drafting the leniency guidelines of the Authority and contributed to several work products of International Competition Network, OECD and UNCTAD.

Between 2014 and 2017, Burcu worked at the Brussels’s office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP as an associate and advised global clients on competition law, State aid and international trade matters. Burcu also contributed to the E-15 initiative of the World Economic Forum and ICTSD in 2015 and co-authored a think piece analyzing the competition law provisions in all international agreements registered at the WTO.

In 2018, Burcu joined ELIG Gurkaynak Attorneys at Law in Turkey as counsel and was promoted to partner in 2019. Burcu had a solo practice in Istanbul between 2020 and 2021, where she continued advising multinational corporations on competition law and digital market regulations.

Burcu joined Kia Automotive’s European HQ in 2021 to establish the first Compliance & Regulatory department for the company in this region. In this role, she built and led a dedicated Compliance & Regulatory team and designed a compliance management system for Kia’s operations through 17 subsidiaries in Europe, including the whistleblowing tool & internal investigations and internal audit functions. She is currently leading the Regulatory & Competition team at Kia Europe, which oversees topics including antitrust & competition, regulatory investigations and dispute resolution, automotive-specific regulations, ESG regulations and supply chain risk management.

Burcu has published on various aspects of competition law, emerging issues in digital markets and the interface between competition and international trade policies. She regularly lectures at universities on compliance management and competition law, and contributes to international competition law journals.

Burcu is a member of the New York Bar and Istanbul Bar. She holds an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School, a Bachelor’s degree in law from Ankara University and a Master’s degree in commercial law from Gazi University.