The Turkish government has published an amendment to the Law on the Regulation of Electronic Commerce in the country. The Amendment Law aims to prevent unfair competition and monopolisation in ecommerce, with the participation of new actors into the market as well as the balanced and healthy growth of the market.

As presented by Lexology, the most amendments, introduced by the Amendment Law include the fact that businesses operating in the fields of private pension, banking, insurance, financing, capital market, payment services, betting and chance games, travel agency, civil aviation and electronic communication are not considered as E-Commerce Instrument Service Provider or E-Commerce Service Provider, the scope of which are determined in detail by the Amendment Regulation. The Turkish Ministry of Commerce has been given additional powers to ensure the development of ecommerce, to protect an efficient and fair competition environment, and to regulate the activities of service providers and intermediary service providers. Other terms included in the amendment According to the new regulation, intermediary service providers and service providers are obliged to keep information, documents, ledgers and electronic records of their business and transactions within the scope of the Amendment Law for 10 years from the date of the business or transaction.

Moreover the Ministry of Commerce is authorised to receive the information of real or legal persons who send commercial electronic messages via voice call and short message from the Information and Communication Technologies Authority. Payments to be made from the ecommerce intermediary service providers to the payment service providers with which they are in economic integrity will need to have been made to the ecommerce intermediary service provider. The bond between the brands that are in the economic integrity of the intermediary service providers and the brands that they have the right to use will be eliminated in the ecommerce marketplaces where it offers intermediary services.

The intermediary service provider will not be able to offer these goods for sale or act as an intermediary in the sale of the goods. If the goods are offered for sale in different ecommerce markets, they will not be able to access to and promote each other, Lexology explains. Provisions regarding unlawful content and illegal competition practices Concerning unlawful content, unless there is a contrary provision in other laws and regulations, the intermediary service provider shall not be liable for unlawful matters regarding the content offered by the service provider and the goods or services subject to the content.

The new amendment however dictates that if the ecommerce intermediary service provider is aware that the content offered by the ecommerce service provider is unlawful, it is obliged to unpublish this content without delay and notify the relevant public institutions and organizations about the matter. Ecommerce apps that impair the electronic commerce service provider’s operations (as defined in the law), its ability to make business decision or that is forcing the latter to become a party to a commercial relationship that it would not be under normal circumstances, will be banned under the new regulation. The Amendment Law will enter into force as of 1 January 2023, and the obligations regarding the ecommerce license will come into effect as of 1 January 2025.

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