Dividends constitute a portion of a company’s net profit that, once approved by the general assembly of shareholders, is distributed among them. The right to claim dividends is therefore regarded as one of the fundamental entitlements of shareholders in joint stock companies. Ensuring the timely payment of dividends holds significant importance within the framework of corporate law as well as securities regulation.

This article, adopting a descriptive analytical method and a critical approach, examines the legal conditions governing dividend claims, the competent adjudicatory authority, the applicable procedural rules, and the enforcement mechanisms.

The findings indicate that under Article 15 of the Law on the Development of New Financial Instruments and Institutions, the legislator shifted jurisdiction over dividend related disputes in listed companies from the ordinary courts to the Securities and Exchange Market Arbitration Board (as defined in Article 36 of the Securities Market Act). Moreover, it granted the Securities and Exchange Organization (SEO) a form of statutory representation to initiate dividend claims before the Arbitration Board. Both reforms, however, invite criticism: the former due to doubts about the “professional” nature of such disputes, the ambiguous legal character of the Arbitration Board, and the lack of a clear procedural framework; the latter because of numerous uncertainties regarding the scope and manner of the SEO’s representative authority—issues for which existing legislation provides no explicit answer. These shortcomings may, in practice, hinder the effective exercise of that statutory representation.