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pal employer and the subcontractor; in case the receivables are not paid
by the subcontractor, it could be also received from the principal
employer which has, in general, a better financial situation.
The Requirements for Subcontract and the Concept of
Contracting Authority
The presence of a subcontract relations are subject to some
requirements and a subcontract relation shall not exist in each case
where another employer does some of the works. Art. 2/7 of the LA
requires certain conditions, which are also accepted by the doctrine: (i)
the principal employer should employ some employees at the work
place, (ii) the work should be done at the work place of the principal
employer, (iii) the work should be related to the main activity of the
work place, (iv) the work should be undertaken by the subcontractor
due to operational requirements or for reasons of technological exper-
tise, (v) the employees should be employed only at the work place of
the principal employer.
It should be emphasized that all of the conditions should exist col-
lectively and existence of only one of the conditions or some of them
should not be sufficient to constitute a subcontract relation.
The first condition for presence of subcontract relation is employ-
ment of employees of the principal employer at the work place. The
principal employer should keep the function of employer and it is nec-
essary that the principal employer has not left the whole work to a sub-
contractor. Accordingly, a subcontractor which undertook to carry out
a work to be solely completed, in a turn-key manner, should not be
considered as a subcontractor but as a principal employer
1
. The
employer, which has given the work to another contractor, should not
be considered, as a principal employer and shall be out of the subcon-
tract relation. In this case, the first employer shall be considered as
“contracting authority” and shall not be liable for the receivables of the
employees of the subcontractors. For instance, in case the General
Directorate of Highways shall give the whole work of construction of
highways to a construction company, the company shall be the princi-
334
NEWSLETTER 2012
1
Suzek, Sarper
, Is Hukuku, 3. Bası, Istanbul 2006, s. 137.