Seda Palanduz

Seda Palanduz serves as a Researcher in the Department of Business Law at MEF University Faculty of Law in Istanbul while pursuing her doctoral degree at Galatasaray University. She earned both bachelor's and master's degrees in law from Galatasaray University and completed an LL.M. at Yale Law School in 2016.

Her scholarly work centers on corporate equity structures, specifically examining how equity components function in investor and creditor protection mechanisms. Palanduz's research investigates equity's role as a benchmark for dividend distributions, capital increases, and interventions for financially distressed companies. Her doctoral dissertation develops a comprehensive analytical framework addressing whether sufficient creditor and minority shareholder protection can coexist with necessary corporate operational flexibility.

As the 2021 Konrad Zweigert Fellow, she conducted comparative research at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, utilizing their extensive resources to analyze Turkish, Swiss, German, and EU legal approaches to corporate equity. Palanduz emphasizes the value of engaging with researchers from diverse legal traditions to broaden perspectives during the doctoral process.

• Konrad Zweigert Fellow 2021

Palanduz values collaborative research environments like the Max Planck Institute, which she describes as both a 'temple of private law' with comprehensive legal resources spanning decades and jurisdictions, and a supportive community that alleviates the isolation often experienced during dissertation writing. Her work bridges theoretical corporate finance concepts with practical legal applications in multiple jurisdictions.