I. Introduction
Administrative authority exercised within port areas—which represent one of the most significant manifestations of Türkiye's national sovereignty—is governed within the framework of Code No. 4922 on the Protection of Life and Property at Sea, the Ports Code No. 618 (the "PC"), and the Ports Regulation. Although the former version of Article 7 PC provided rules regarding measures to be taken in respect of sunken vessels, Article 7 was comprehensively amended (the "Amendment") by Article 5 of Code No. 7061, dated 28 November 2017, on the Amendment of Certain Tax Codes and Certain Other Codes. This study examines how, following the 2017 Amendment, Article 7 of PC transitioned from a traditional sunken vessel regime into a sui generis administrative wreck removal regime within port administrative limits—based on risk-oriented rapid intervention and public pre-financing of costs. It further analyses practical implementation challenges, including discrepancies with secondary legislation, judicial review mechanisms, and procedural ambiguities surrounding public sales.
II. Lagal Framework of Article 7 PC Prior to the 2017 Amendment
The former provision governed the statutory powers of Harbour Masters regarding sunken ships. In addition to this Article, Article 1386 of the Turkish Commercial Code No. 6102 (the "TCC") empowers the Harbour Master to apply to the execution court for the expedited/early judicial sale of an arrested vessel if it poses a hazard. Under the pre-amendment regime, if the wreck owner failed to remove the wreck within the period granted and the Harbour Master carried out the removal, a public announcement was issued for reimbursement of costs and retrieval of the property. If uncollected within 15 days, the wreck was sold upon application by the Harbour Master, who held a priority claim over the proceeds to recover expenses. However, the former text suffered from major legislative gaps: time limits for administrative actions were undefined, and early judicial sales via execution offices were unduly prolonged. Moreover, the rule holding ship agents directly liable for wreck removal was widely criticized as unreasonable. Financial and administrative bottlenecks resulting from the inability to swiftly remove wrecks threatening navigational safety or the environment prompted the 2017 reform. Although Türkiye is not yet a party to the 2007 Nairobi International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks (the "Convention"), the legislature granted Harbour Masters powers largely aligned with the principles of the Convention.
III. Legal Framework of Article 7 PC Following the 2017 Amendment
To resolve these procedural bottlenecks, Article 7 PC was thoroughly revised in 2017, establishing a modern administrative mechanism echoing the Nairobi Convention. The primary objective was to enable Harbour Masters to intervene swiftly and effectively against hazardous or abandoned/idle vessels within their jurisdiction. The current text reads as follows:
Article 7 – (Amended: 28/11/2017 – Art. 5 of Code No. 7061): Vessels and their appurtenances/property within the Harbour Master’s administrative area of responsibility that pose a risk to life, property, or the marine environment, or which are grounded, semi-sunken, sunken, abandoned, or idle in a condition obstructing the safety of navigation and traffic, must be removed or relocated by the ship owner or master within a timeframe determined by the Harbour Master. This period shall not exceed forty-five days. If the vessel is foreign-flagged, notification shall be served upon the competent maritime authority of the State of registry, the ship owner, and the master; if their addresses are unknown, notice shall be published in an international maritime bulletin. If the vessel is Turkish-flagged, notice shall be served upon the ship owner or master; if their addresses are unknown, it shall be published in a nationwide newspaper with a daily circulation exceeding one hundred thousand. Furthermore, if the vessel or property (having lost its character as a ship) is subject to arrest or attachment, the execution office executing the arrest shall also be notified. Upon objections raised by interested parties based on technical or meteorological necessity, such timeframes may be extended by the Harbour Master for a single additional period not exceeding forty-five days.
Where the parties notified pursuant to paragraph one cannot be reached within the prescribed period, or where reached but refrain from removing or relocating the vessel, the Harbour Master shall be authorized to remove, have removed, relocate, have relocated, destroy, sell, or have sold the vessel and its property. The sale shall be executed directly by the Harbour Master’s Office, and all expenses incurred up to the sale stage shall be pre-financed from the Revolving Fund Enterprise of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure. After deducting and recording the incurred expenses as revenue of the Revolving Fund Enterprise, any remaining balance—if the vessel or property is subject to arrest/attachment—shall be transferred to the file of the primary arresting execution office and distributed among creditors according to a schedule of distribution prepared under applicable enforcement law. Any surplus remaining thereafter shall be deposited into an escrow account held by the Revolving Fund Enterprise, to be remitted to the rightful owner upon application within five years. Objections or administrative/judicial applications made during the sale procedure shall not stay execution of the sale. The property sold shall be delivered to the purchaser free and clear of all encumbrances and liens.
Except as provided above, where vessels within the Harbour Master’s administrative jurisdiction pose a grave danger to navigation or to the safety and security of life, property, or the environment, the Harbour Master shall be fully authorized—notwithstanding any court order, judicial arrest, or administrative injunction concerning the vessel or marine craft, and without being bound by the time limits in paragraph one—to take all necessary measures, including towing/transferring the vessel to a safe location. Expenses incurred for measures taken under this paragraph shall be borne by the ship owner. If the ship owner fails to reimburse such costs within thirty days, expenses other than port stay/lay-up fees shall be funded by the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, and the provisions above shall apply accordingly.
The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure is authorized to issue secondary regulations regarding the implementation of this Article.
The core legislative modifications introduced by the 2017 Amendment are categorized below:
1. Competent Authority: Under the former statutory scheme, revenue offices under the Ministry of Finance carried out sales and collections. Under the revised framework, authority to identify wrecks, fix removal deadlines, order removal/destruction, and execute public sales was centralized under Harbour Master's Offices subordinate to the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure.
2. Scope of Application: While the previous scope was restricted to "sunken vessels and property obstructing safe navigation", the revised text expands coverage to "vessels and property posing a risk to life, property, or the marine environment, or which are sunken, grounded, semi-sunken, abandoned or idle". According to the official preamble, "property of the vessel" encompasses cargo, bunker fuel, and lubricating oils on board. Although these terms are not explicitly defined in the PC, the definition of "wreck" under Article 1(4) of the Nairobi Convention provides authoritative guidance. Under the Convention, a wreck following a maritime casualty includes: (i) a sunken or stranded ship; (ii) any part of a sunken or stranded ship, including any object that is or has been on board; (iii) any object lost at sea from a ship and stranded, sunken, or adrift; or (iv) a ship that is about to sink or strand where effective assistance measures are not being undertaken.
Lastly, the Harbour Master's jurisdiction is strictly territorial, limited to its designated port administrative area. The administration does not possess these administrative removal powers for casualties occurring beyond port administrative limits.
3. Time Limits: The former text provided no objective deadline, referring only to a "short period". The revised Article 7 caps the initial removal period at forty-five days. Upon formal objection based on verified technical or meteorological necessity, the Harbour Master may grant a single extension not exceeding an additional forty-five days.
4. Parties Liable: The 2017 Amendment removed the "agent" from the list of statutory obligors, leaving the "ship owner" and "master". While relieving agents from strict wreck removal liability was overwhelmingly welcomed by doctrine, retaining the master's direct liability remains criticized. Although the master holds legal representation powers, imposing personal, joint liability for complex physical removal operations creates an excessive burden. Given that masters are employees usually lacking financial capability, retaining their joint financial liability adds little operational value to achieving rapid wreck removal. It is submitted that the master's role should be legally confined to acting as the primary addressee for emergency administrative notices. In maritime practice, wreck removal operations are routinely directed and funded by Protection and Indemnity (P&I) Clubs rather than ship owners directly, as most P&I policies cover compulsory wreck removal liabilities.
IV. Administrative Powers of the Harbour Master
Where notified parties fail to act within prescribed timeframes, Article 7(1) PC empowers the Harbour Master to directly:
- Remove or order removal;
- Relocate or order relocation;
- Order destruction;
- Sell or order the sale of the vessel and its property.
As can be understood from the wording of the Article, Harbour Masters are authorised to take any steps required by the existing condition of the ship in order to protect navigational safety and prevent environmental pollution risks. One of the principal objectives of the provision is to conclude wreck-removal processes rapidly; accordingly, the sale process is also protected against judicial and administrative objections that might otherwise be raised. More generally, the underlying purpose of the Article is to ensure that expenses incurred by the Harbour Master are recovered as quickly as possible and to prevent loss to public funds.
When dealing with a casualty or abandoned vessel, the initial measure undertaken by both insurers and Harbour Masters is bunker fuel removal and cargo discharge to mitigate environmental exposure. Once bunkers and cargo are safely removed, ordering structural wreck removal without concrete proof of ongoing navigational or environmental risk lacks precedent. Consequently, scientific evidence of persistent hazard should be required prior to ordering total physical removal.
If a sunken, semi-sunken, grounded or abandoned vessel sold by the Harbour Master was subject to judicial arrest/attachment, administrative expenses are recouped first from the sale proceeds. Any surplus is transferred to the execution file of the primary arresting creditor for distribution according to a judicial ranking schedule. Remaining funds are held in an administrative escrow account for five years. The lack of detailed secondary regulations governing the exact mechanics of administrative auctions remains a point of critique in maritime doctrine.
Pursuant to Article 7 PC, title to the vessel and cargo passes to the purchaser free and clear of all encumbrances, maritime liens, and judicial attachments, fully aligning with Article 1388(2) TCC.
Finally, the concluding paragraph of Article 7 PC confers emergency intervention powers: even if a vessel is not technically sunken, grounded, or abandoned, the Harbour Master may take immediate operational measures if the vessel presents an imminent, serious threat to maritime safety or the environment—irrespective of existing court injunctions or judicial arrest orders.
V. Statutory Notifications
The notice specifying the removal deadline must be formally served as follows:
- Arrested/Attached Vessels: Notice served upon the enforcement office.
- Turkish-Flagged Vessels: Notice served upon the ship owner or master. If they cannot be reached, notice is published in a nationwide daily newspaper with a circulation exceeding 100,000.
- Foreign-Flagged Vessels: Notice served upon the competent authority of the State of Registry, the ship owner, and the master. If addresses are unknown, notice is published in an international maritime bulletin. Serving notice solely on the State of Registry rather than the Flag State may cause friction where these states differ; notifying the Flag State concurrently is recommended for operational efficiency.
VI. Practical Implications of The Harbour Masters’ Powers
Harbour Masters are vested with broad powers in respect of incidents occurring within their administrative areas of responsibility, based on the State’s sovereign rights. However, in practice, do Harbour Masters themselves remove a sunken vessel and exercise the power of sale? It is observed that Harbour Masters tend, as far as possible, to ensure the removal of wrecks without expenditure from public resources.
1. In a 2016 decision of the High Court of Appeal, the costs of salvage, wreck removal and environmental clean-up of a vessel that broke apart off Florya due to severe weather conditions became the subject of a commercial dispute. The vessel had partially grounded and partially sunk together with its fuel. The claimant company, having been appointed by the vessel’s P&I Club for the removal of the wreck, discharged the fuel on board and subsequently removed part of the wreck. It then sought recovery of these costs from the ship owner.
The Court of First Instance dismissed the action for lack of title to be sued, stating that the claimant had acted in accordance with the instructions of the public authority and that no liability could therefore be established against the defendant on the basis of contract, tort, unjust enrichment or agency without authority. Upon appeal of the first-instance judgment, the High Court of Appeal concluded that the claimant’s compliance with the instructions of the public authority did not prevent it from claiming the costs from the ship owner. In the case at issue, during the period granted to the ship owner by the Harbour Master, a wreck removal company was appointed by the vessel’s P&I Club. Although the decision is not explicit on this point, it is likely that the P&I Club made the appointment in the name and on behalf of its member ship owner. Although the principal reason for the appointment of this company was a public-law order issued to the ship owner by the Harbour Master, it was determined that the ship owner was liable for the costs incurred, since the ship owner was in any event under a statutory obligation to remove the wreck. This decision of the High Court of Appeal demonstrates that, even where wreck removal activities are mandated by a public authority, the person carrying out such activities may seek reimbursement of its costs from the ship owner.
2. In a dispute addressed in a 2020 decision of the High Administrative Court, annulment of the tender was sought on the ground that the Harbour Master’s decision concerning the sale of the vessels was procedurally unlawful. In the case at issue, the ship owners of two Turkish-flagged tanker vessels were requested to remove the vessels pursuant to Article 7 PC because they had remained idle for a long period, were beyond repair, and posed environmental risks. When the vessels were not removed within the period granted, the Harbour Master decided to sell them. This decision was notified to the relevant execution office. However, there was a substantial disparity between the values determined for the vessels in the execution file and those determined by the administration. Annulment of the tenders was sought on the ground that, if the vessels were sold at the low values determined by the Harbour Master, which were considerably lower than the values determined by the execution office, the debtor ship owners would suffer serious prejudice. A further ground for annulment was that the sale decision had been announced only once and therefore failed to comply with the formal requirements for tender announcements under the State Tender Code No. 2886.
The Court of First Instance found the tender at issue lawful and dismissed the action in light of the statements in the expert report that: “The fact that the vessel is uncrewed and uncontrollable, has a low freeboard and is close to the shore, making it accessible to any ill-intentioned person, and that fuel and similar explosive substances as well as chemical substances harmful to human health and the environment on board can be easily accessed further increases the risks of fire, taking on water and sinking. It is evident that the vessel is not roadworthy or seaworthy; that the risks of taking on water/sinking and fire are high in terms of navigational, life, property and environmental safety and security; that it may cause an environmental disaster extending to the Sea of Marmara and the straits and that this risk will increase as its condition deteriorates; and that it poses a danger to property, human and environmental safety.” The High Administrative Court noted that Article 17 of the State Tender Code No. 2886 requires the tender to be announced twice in a daily newspaper published at the place where the tender will be held, with at least one day between the announcements, and provides that the period between the first newspaper announcement and the tender date may not be less than ten days and the period between the final announcement and the tender date may not be less than five days. Since, in the tenders at issue, only one announcement was made without complying with the requirement to make two announcements at intervals of at least one day and with the minimum periods between the announcements, the High Administrative Court reversed the first-instance judgment and annulled the transaction on the ground that the tender procedure prescribed by law had not been followed.
3. The sinking of the container vessel AMNAH during loading operations at Ambarli Marport in 2024 once again demonstrated the importance of verifying vessels’ P&I insurance policies. Checks carried out after the incident revealed that the vessel was insured by a Chile-based company named Los Andres de Proteccion de Indemnizacion. However, attempts to contact the company were unsuccessful and, although the validity of the policy could be verified on the insurer’s website, the insurer denied the existence of a valid policy. The vessel wreck was removed by the port operator using its own resources. Following this incident, Türkiye submitted a paper entitled “Insurers’ Responsibilities and Verification of Insurance Policies” to the Legal Committee of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). By drawing attention to the incident in question, the paper aimed to raise awareness of the importance of the existence, validity and verification of insurance that vessels are required to maintain under international regulations.
4. The vessel NATALIA, IMO No. 8203622, grounded at Sile on 19 December 2018 while carrying a cargo of sodium carbonate loaded in Russia. Within the scope of the powers granted to it under Article 7 PC, the Harbour Master of Sile granted the ship owner a period to remove the vessel from its location. When the ship owner failed to take the necessary steps within the periods granted by the Harbour Master of Sile, the Harbour Master initiated the sale proceedings for the vessel. The tender conducted under the PC and the State Tender Code was carried out by open bidding, and a recycling company won the tender. Although execution proceedings had been initiated against the vessel, pursuant to Article 7 PC the vessel and the cargo on board were sold on 20 December 2019 to the purchaser recycling company, free and clear of all encumbrances and under the rules governing acquisition of ownership of movable property, for dismantling in situ.
Although the purchaser company undertook in the tender specifications to complete the wreck removal work within a maximum of 45 days by taking the necessary measures, the wreck removal operations lasted 22.5 months because the weather and sea conditions in the Black Sea did not permit completion of the work within that period. The purchaser company sought recovery from the vessel’s P&I Club of its receivables arising from the wreck removal operation. In the proceedings before the Istanbul 17th Commercial Court of First Instance, the action was dismissed on the following grounds:
- The claimant purchaser, when conducting its due diligence before submitting a bid for the tender, should have determined the period and price by taking into account dismantling, transportation and access-road works, bearing in mind that the vessel would be dismantled at its location;
- It was concluded that the vessel’s former owner had lost its ownership right pursuant to Article 7 PC and that, consequently, the liability insurer was not liable to the claimant purchaser.
The decision held that, where the vessel is sold through the Harbour Master, the former owner’s ownership right comes to an end and, therefore, the liability of its insurer also terminates. It was emphasized that, before the sale by tender, the vessel had lost its character as a “ship” and had become property subject to the rules on ownership of movable property; therefore, the activity carried out constituted wreck removal rather than salvage. The claimant appealed the first-instance judgment; however, the Regional Court of Appeal found the first-instance judgment lawful and dismissed the appeal. The case is currently pending review before the High Court of Appeal.
VII. CONCLUSION
Article 7 of PC is based on Türkiye’s sovereign rights as a Port State. Vessels located within port administrative limits are required to comply with the national regulations of the Port State. In the event of non-compliance with these regulations—in other words, where overriding public interests require intervention because there is a risk to life, property or the environment, or a situation that may obstruct navigational safety—Türkiye, like most Port States, is vested with powers that it may exercise exclusively.
The dissenting opinion appended to the legislative reasoning for the amendment to Article 7 of PC emphasized that the views of sector representatives had not been sought during the amendment process and that, with the aim of shortening administrative procedural periods, the Amendment entered into force containing provisions alleged to be contrary to the Constitution. Although the text of the Article is open to criticism in these respects, granting Harbour Masters powers parallel to those under the Convention is important in terms of harmonization with international conventions. It would be appropriate to take complementary steps by harmonizing secondary regulations with the law, determining the details of the sale procedure, strengthening the insurance verification mechanism, and establishing a clearer and more appropriate balance between judicial review and the need for emergency intervention.
