24 January 2023
YAZICIOGLU Legal
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(i) Significant Amendments to
the Law on Electronic Commerce and (ii) New Regulation on
E-Marketplace Operators and Ehave entered into force
Amendments to the Law on Electronic Commerce
(“Amendments“), and New Regulation on
Electronic Commerce Intermediary Service Providers and Electronic
Commerce Service Providers
(“Regulation“) which impose significant
obligations on operators (“Marketplace
Operator“) of e-marketplaces
(“Marketplace“) and e-commerce
sellers/providers (“Seller/Provider“),
have entered into force as of 1 January 20231.
Non-compliance with these obligations is subject to
administrative monetary fines. These fines vary between TRY 10
thousand and TRY 40 million, and also certain fines are calculated
on a percentage basis, varying between 0.05% and 10% of the net
sales amount of the preceding year.
Although some of the provisions of the Regulation is the same
with the previous regulation, we have also indicated them to give a
comprehensive idea about the requirements under Turkish electronic
commerce legislation.
1. Obligations applicable to Marketplace Operators
- General Obligations
A Marketplace Operator shall:- provide its identification information on its Marketplace’s
homepage, - allocate an appropriate area and provide necessary technical
facilities to the Seller/Provider to include the identification
information of the Seller/Provider on the Marketplace, - establish an internal communication system to provide easy and
free communication with the Seller/Provider and submissions from
the Seller/Provider shall be received through this
system2, - designate at least one natural or legal person as a point of
contact to communicate with public institutions and bodies and
notify the Ministry of Commerce
(“Ministry“) of the contact details of
this person via Electronic Commerce Information System
(“ETBIS“), - provide certain information under its transaction guide (as
detailed in the Regulation), - comply with rules on receiving, confirming and delivering
orders (as detailed in the Regulation), - notify the buyer without delay from the receipt of the order
via the Marketplace and by at least one of the means of
communication as follows: e-mail, text message or phone call, - ensure necessary integration with the Seller/Provider for the
simultaneous transmission of order information to the
Seller/Provider and keep the stock information up to date, - remove unlawful content submitted by the Seller/Provider and
notify the Seller/Provider and relevant public institutions and
organizations without delay and at the latest within 48 hours. As
for intellectual property rights, if the Marketplace Operator
receives a complaint from the intellectual right owner supported by
relevant information and documents, the Marketplace Operator shall
remove the product subject to the complaint and notify the relevant
parties without delay and at the latest within 48 hours, - retain for 10 years the information and documents relating to
the services and transactions falling within the scope of the
Electronic Commerce Law, - not restrict, suspend, or terminate its intermediary services,
except for the objective criteria included in the intermediation
agreement. In the event of a situation requiring the restriction,
suspension or termination of the agreement, Marketplace Operator
shall give at least 3 business days to the Seller/Provider to
submit its explanations. If the explanations of the Seller/Provider
are insufficient, or no explanation is provided, Marketplace
Operator may restrict, suspend, or terminate the intermediary
services. Intermediary services may also be restricted, suspended
or terminated immediately for the reasons arising from the
legislation or in cases involving public order, nondelayable cases
or fraud, data breach or other cyber security risks, - obtain an e-commerce license (subject to an annual fee) as of 1
January 2025 if it exceeds certain thresholds, - not offer to sale or act as an intermediary for the sale of
products that are labeled with the trademark(s) for which
intellectual property rights or right to use belong to itself or to
the persons with whom it has economic integrity3, - enable Sellers/Providers to provide the information required
under the Tax Procedure Law such as information required to be on
receipts/invoices, on its Marketplace, - not use the registered trademarks of any person (except for the
persons with whom they have an economic integrity), which
constitute the main element of their websites’ domain names
registered at ETBIS, in online search engines for marketing and
promotion activities without obtaining the prior approval of such
persons, - verify the identification information of the Seller/Provider
with documents obtained from the Seller/Provider or via accessible
electronic systems of relevant institutions and keeping this
information up to date, - shall not carry out unfair commercial practices, examples which
are as follows:- failure to transfer the payment to the Seller/Provider in full
and within 5 business days from the date when the amount is at the
disposal of the Marketplace Operator and the order is delivered to
the buyer (certain exemptions exists for the Marketplace
Operator’s blocked accounts in banks and setoff of Marketplace
Operator’s receivables from Sellers/Providers). - obliging the Seller/Provider to carry out sales campaigns,
including unilateral modification of the selling price by the
Marketplace Operator. - failure to determine the terms of the commercial relationship
with the Seller/Provider by a written or electronic intermediation
agreement, or failure to ensure that this agreement is clear,
understandable, and easily accessible by the Seller/Provider, and
failure to comply with the requirements with respect to the
intermediation agreement despite the notice received from the
Ministry. - making retroactive or unilateral amendments or including a
provision to the intermediation agreement to the disadvantage of
the Seller/Provider. - receiving remuneration from the Seller/Provider without
providing any services or stating the type/price/rate of the
services in the intermediation agreement. - lowering the Seller/Provider’s position in the ranking or
recommendation system or restricting, suspending, or terminating
the services provided to the Seller/Provider without any objective
criteria included in the intermediation agreement in this regard or
on the ground that a complaint has been filed to public
institutions or judicial authorities. - determining the right of withdrawal periods longer than those
specified under the Law on the Protection of the Consumer, without
the prior approval of the Seller/Provider. - providing untrue or misleading explanations and notifications
to the Seller/Provider about its products and activities.
- failure to transfer the payment to the Seller/Provider in full
- provide its identification information on its Marketplace’s
Also, the intermediation agreements between a Marketplace
Operator and a Seller/Provider shall be amended in accordance with
the Amendments and the Regulation.4
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Footnotes
1. The exceptions are indicated in the following
footnotes.
2. Transactions envisaged to be made via the internal
communication system can be made by other technical means until 1
July 2023.
3. This prohibition does not apply to Marketplace
Operators who derive more than half of their total sales revenue
from offline sales. The effective date of this article is 1 January
2023 while the deadline for compliance with this obligation is 1
January 2024.
4. The effective date of this provision is 1 January
2023. However, agreements made before 1 January 2023 should be
amended within 6 months from this date.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.
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