The European Union actively uses anti-dumping and anti-subsidy (or countervailing duty) investigations to protect the EU manufacturing industry from competition from imports. Imports from Türkiye are a prime target for these investigations: in the past 20 years, imports from Türkiye were targeted in 15 anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations. Five of these investigations were initiated in the last three years.

In recent weeks, the EU Draft Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste as well as communiqués on the inspection of compliance with relevant standards or technical regulations for certain imported and/or exported products have been published in the commercial and trade sector. In addition, various amendments were made to the Customs Regulation, the Regulation on the Principles and Rules to be Applied in Retail Trade, and the Law on the Regulation of Retail Trade.

Law No. 7435 on the Amendment of the Law on the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Türkiye and the Chambers and Commodity Exchanges and Certain Laws and the Decree Law No. 640, published in the Official Gazette dated 1 February 2023 and numbered 32091, introduced significant amendments to Law No. 6585 on the Regulation of Retail Trade.

On 27 January 2023, the Draft Law on the Restructuring of Certain Receivables and Amending Certain Laws was submitted to the Turkish Parliament. It includes provisions regarding the restructuring of various public receivables, including customs receivables.

The amendments to the Law on the Regulation of Electronic Commerce that was adopted on 1 July 2022 will enter into force on 1 January 2023. As part of these amendments, the Regulation on Electronic Commerce Intermediary Service Providers and Electronic Commerce Service Providers was published on the Official Gazette no. 32058 dated 29 December 2022.
The Regulation aims to detail and clarify the requirements under the Law.

In recent weeks, the Decree on Electronic Export Incentives and the new Regulation on Consumer Arbitration Committees have been published in the commercial and trade sector. In addition, there have been various amendments to the communiqués on environmentally friendly design requirements and energy labeling for certain products, the Regulation on Consumer Credit Agreements, the Law on the Regulation of Retail Trade, the Regulation on the General Principles of Waste Pretreatment and Recovery Facilities and the Regulation on the Principles and Rules to be Applied in Retail Trade. In addition, the monetary limits for application to consumer courts and the fines for consumer law violations have been increased.

The Regulation on the Amendment of the Distance Sales Regulation was published in the Official Gazette on 23 August 2022. Save for the provision regarding the obligation of the card issuer on refunds of the amount transferred by the seller, service provider or intermediary service provider, which will enter into force on 1 January 2023, the amendments came into force on 1 October 2022. The Ministry of Trade has made significant amendments to the provisions regarding the scope of the Distance Sales Regulation, the obligation of prior notification, the right of withdrawal, and the obligations of the seller, service provider and consumer. With the amendments, the Distance Sales Regulation has been aligned with the amendments introduced to the Consumer Protection Law on 1 April 2022.

On 11 January 2022, the Personal Data Protection Authority (“Authority”) published the Draft Guideline on Use of Cookies and on 20 June 2022, it published the Guideline on Use of Cookies (“Guideline”). With the Guideline, the Authority aims to bring forward recommendations to ensure compliance of cookie usage procedures followed by data controllers with the Personal Data Protection Law.

The Ministry of Trade amended the Customs Regulation on 25 May 2022. Amendments include a simplified authorized sender declaration as well as changes to regulations covering: declaration periods for imports with unknown values; delivery of goods; incomplete export declarations and supplementary export declarations; general warehouse storage and permits, the cost of customs laboratory testing; and, companies established by authorized customs consultants.