Contact: Att. Selen Ozturk; Erdem & Erdem (Turkey)
Introduction
The Law on the Regulation of Electronic Commerce numbered 6563 (“E-Commerce Law”) was published in the Official Gazette dated 05.11.2014 and numbered 29166 and will enter into force on 01.05.2015. The E-Commerce Law carries importance specifically in Turkey, which occupies the 9th place among the developing markets with highest e-commerce potentials.[1] The scope of the E-Commerce Law comprises of commercial communication, the liabilities of the service providers and the intermediary service providers, the agreements concluded by electronic means, the obligation to provide information on electronic commerce and the sanctions.
Ratio Legis of the E-Commerce Law
As indicated in the legislative justification of the E-Commerce Law, the previous legislation was falling short in regulating the terminology introduced by the developments of the information technology such as access, content provider and service provider. The E-Commerce Law is adopted in order to address this problem and hence to fill the relevant gap in our legal system. Moreover, the E-Commerce Law aims to achieve harmonization with the relevant European Union (“EU”) legislation, namely the Directive 200/31/EC on Certain Legal Aspects of Information Society Services, in particular Electronic Commerce, in the Internal Market (“Directive”)[2].
