Recent Development
The Ministry of Trade (“Ministry“) published the Regulation on Market Surveillance and Inspection of Products Supplied on the Market via Remote Communication Tools (“Regulation“) in the Official Gazette dated 30 October 2024 and numbered 32707.
The Regulation, which will enter into force on 1 April 2025, sets forth the procedures and principles regarding the market supply conditions and sales advertisements of products supplied on the market or made available on the market via remote communication tools such as the internet, telephone and email; the obligations of persons who supply these products on the market or make them available on the market, and the procedures and principles regarding market surveillance and inspection to be carried out.
You can access the Regulation here (in Turkish).
What is Introduced in the Regulation?
A. General Principles
A product must comply with the relevant product safety legislation to be supplied on the market or to be made available on the market via remote communication tools.
If the products offered for sale via remote communication tools, including the promotions given for the realization of the sale, are targeted at end users resident in Türkiye, the product will be deemed to be made available on the market.
Economic operators that meet at least one of the following conditions will be deemed to be targeting end users resident in Türkiye in sales made via distance communication tools: i) providing Turkish language option; ii) the option to display the price in Turkish Lira; iii) acceptance of payment in Turkish Lira; iv) the option to make deliveries to addresses in Türkiye; v) physical delivery to end users in Türkiye; and vi) in the sales via the internet, registration of the domain name in geographical areas where shipment to Türkiye is possible. “Economic operator” means the manufacturer, authorized representative, importer, distributor or other natural or legal persons that are responsible for the manufacturing, making it available on the market or putting into service of products within the scope of the relevant technical regulation.
For a product within the scope of the legislation included in the list (“List“) published by the Ministry to be available on the market via remote communication tools, there must be a manufacturer, importer or authorized representative appointed by the manufacturer resident in Türkiye, respectively. If they are not available, there must be a performance service provider resident in Türkiye. “Authorized representative” means a natural or legal person resident in Türkiye appointed in writing by the manufacturer to fulfill certain obligations on its behalf in the absence of the manufacturer or importer of the product resident in Türkiye. “Performance service provider” means a natural or legal person that, in the course of its commercial operations, offers at least two of the storage, packaging, addressing and transport services, excluding postal services, parcel delivery services, other postal services or freight forwarding services, without taking ownership of the product.
B. Sale Advertisements
The economic operator must include the following information in the sales advertisements and before the end user purchases the product:
- Name and registered trade name, postal and email address;
- The name, registered trade name or trademark, postal address and email address of the manufacturer of the product resident in Türkiye;
- If the manufacturer is not resident in Türkiye, the importer’s name, registered trade name or trademark, postal and email address;
- In the absence of a manufacturer or importer resident in Türkiye and for products covered by the legislation included in the List, the name and registered trade name, postal and email address of (i) the authorized representative appointed by the manufacturer and residing in Türkiye; in the absence of such a representative, (ii) the performance service provider resident in Türkiye
- Warning and safety information and signs of conformity in Turkish, which are required by technical regulations to be attached to the product or product packaging or accompanying documents; and
- All other information that allows the description of the product, including a photograph of the product, the type of product and other information to identify the product.
C. Obligations
i. Obligations of Authorized Representative
In the absence of a manufacturer or importer resident in Türkiye for the product groups within the scope of the legislation included in the List, the authorized representative must indicate its name, registered trade name or trademark and contact details, including its full address, on the product, or where this is not possible, on the packaging of the product or in a document accompanying the product, in a way that will not mislead the end user and can be clearly understood.
ii. Obligations of the Performance Service Provider
The performance service provider will be considered as a distributor when its operations do not affect the safety of the product and will have distributor’s liability under the legislation.
If the performance service provider affixes its own trademark and name on the product or modifies the product in such a way as to affect its conformity with the requirements of the relevant technical regulations or if its operations affect the safety of the product, it will be considered as the manufacturer and will be held responsible for the obligations of the manufacturer.
In the absence of a manufacturer, importer or authorized representative resident in Türkiye in respect of the product groups covered by the legislation included in the List, the performance service provider must fulfill the following responsibilities:
- To specify the name, registered trade name or trademark and contact details including its full address, on the product, where this is not possible, on the packaging of the product or in a document accompanying the product in a way that is clearly understood and not misleading to the end user;
- Where required by the relevant technical regulations, to confirm that the declaration of conformity or declaration of performance and the technical file have been prepared, to maintain the declaration of conformity or declaration of performance to be submitted to the competent authority for the period specified in the relevant technical regulation, and where no period is specified, for the period specified in the Law on Product Safety and Technical Regulations, and to submit the technical file to the competent authority upon request of the competent authorities;
- To provide documents proving the conformity of the product at the request of the competent authority;
- To inform the competent authority after becoming aware that the product carries a risk or in cases where it should have been known that the product carries a risk; and
- In the event of any non-conformity, to take corrective action immediately or to cooperate with the competent authority to eliminate the risk.
iii. Obligations of the Intermediary Service Provider
The obligations of intermediary service providers that provide an e-commerce environment for economic and commercial operations of others are as follows:
- To organize its online interface in such a way as to enable the economic operators to provide the aforementioned information for each product supplied to the market or made available on the market and to ensure that the information is displayed by the end users in the advertisement of the product or is easily accessible by other means;
- To execute the removal of content and other requests from competent authorities within twenty-four hours and to inform the requestor immediately;
- In the event that the non-conformity of a product on the market is found out, to take immediate action to remove the content of the relevant product in the e-commerce environment or to prevent access to the content and to inform the competent authority accordingly;
- To implement the requests of the competent authorities to prevent the violating content from being listed on their online interfaces in the future;
- To designate a product safety contact point to meet requests from competent authorities, including the removal of content, and to enable end users to contact it directly and promptly on product safety matters;
- To communicate the information contained in the announcement made by the economic operator regarding the recall of the product via email message without delay in accordance with the procedure for the recall of the product to all end users who have purchased such products through its online interface that it has learned have been recalled for noncompliance; and
- To keep a record of the name, registered trade name or trademark and contact information of the previous and, if any, the next economic operator in the supply chain, as well as other information that will facilitate the tracing of the product, keep the record regularly, keep it for ten years from the date it was placed on the market or started to be kept on the market through the online interface and to submit it to the competent authorities upon request.
D. Administrative Penalties
- Administrative fine. Administrative fines stipulated under the Law on Product Safety and Technical Regulations will be imposed on persons who do not comply with their obligations under the Regulation.
- Access blocking. If a non-compliant product is promoted and sold on the e-commerce environment of an intermediary service provider, the competent authority will notify the intermediary service provider via email or other means of communication through the communication tools on the internet pages, domain name, IP address and similar sources to remove the content. If the content is not removed within twenty four hours or it is identified that the same product is available again on the systems despite the removal of the content within twenty four hours, the competent authority may decide to block access to the content related to the product and notify this decision to the Information Technologies and Communication Authority for implementation. The same procedure will be followed if the website directly belongs to the economic operator.
- Suspension of advertisement. If a noncompliant product is promoted and sold on television or radio, the competent authority will request the relevant media service provider to stop the promotion and sale. The media service provider must cooperate with the competent authority to stop the promotion and sale. The competent authority must notify the Radio and Television Supreme Council of the decision to suspend the sale.
- Recall/withdrawal. The competent authority will warn the economic operator that violates the rules on the provision of information on products in sales announcements, electronically or in writing in order to eliminate the non-conformity. If the non-compliance is not remedied, it must take the necessary measures to prohibit or restrict the supply of the product to the market or ensure that the product on the market is recalled or withdrawn from the market.
- Temporary measures. If the competent authority decides, as a result of the risk assessment it has conducted, that the non-compliance with the rules for providing information about products in sales advertisements constitutes a serious risk indicator, it may decide to temporarily suspend the supply and making the product available on the market via remote communication tools until the control of the product is completed during the inspection. Pursuant to this decision, the competent authority may request the intermediary service provider or economic operator to remove the content relating to the relevant product from the online interface. The competent authority is also authorized to require the intermediary service provider or economic operator to clearly display a warning to end users when accessing the online interface in an easily visible manner until the indication of risk ceases to exist.
Conclusion
The Regulation introduces many new obligations for persons who supply products to the market or make available on the market via remote communication tools. Importantly, the Regulation imposes additional responsibilities on intermediary service providers and performance service providers in addition to manufacturers and importers. In this regard, intermediary service providers and performance service providers will need to comply with the new regime by 1 April 2025.
Furthermore, since economic operators that target end users in Türkiye despite not being resident in Türkiye are explicitly included within the scope of the Regulation, e-commerce environments that sell or mediate the sale of products from abroad to persons in Türkiye will also need to comply with the Regulation.
Finally, manufacturers will need to appoint in writing an authorized representative resident in Türkiye for the product groups subject to the List, but that do not have a manufacturer or importer established in Türkiye, to be made available on the market via remote communication tools.
