The Principles and Rules to be Applied in Retail Trade have been reorganize 18 December 2023

"Regulation on Principles and Rules to be Applied in Retail Trade" published in the Official Gazette dated 06.08.2016 and numbered 29793, some provisions have been amended, new provisions have been added and some provisions have been repealed. The general purpose of this amendment is to comply with the amendments made in the Law No. 6585 on the Regulation of Retail Trade.

The first of the amendments is the definition of unfair commercial practice as activities that significantly impair the commercial activities of one of the parties in commercial relations between producers, suppliers and retail businesses, reduce the ability of the other party to make reasonable decisions or cause it to be a party to a commercial relationship to which it would not normally be a party.

Within this scope, forcing the procurement of goods or services from any natural or legal person, except for the conditions such as product content and technology to be used in the contract in order to ensure quality standards; reflecting the cost of the campaign to the party that does not want to make campaign sales; not determining the terms of the commercial relationship in the supply of agricultural and food products by written contract or by e-mail, fax or other written means in electronic media that can show the agreement between the parties; including provisions in the contract that authorize unilateral changes to the detriment of the other party or that are not clear and understandable in essential matters such as maturity, return and campaign conditions; receiving premiums and fees even though it does not provide any service that directly affects the product demand such as promotional services in the form of activities, advertisements, magazines, announcements and similar forms or special positioning services in display units and does not specify the type, duration and/or number of services provided and the amount or rate of the service fee in the contract, or receiving premiums and fees under the names of store opening and renovation, turnover deficit, bank and credit card participation fee and other names; canceling orders for agricultural and food products that are perishable within thirty days from the date of production, within thirty days before the delivery date of the product, except in cases arising from the fault of the other party, and reflecting costs such as deterioration or loss after the delivery or transfer of ownership of agricultural and food products are regulated as unfair commercial practices.

Also within the scope of the regulation; reflecting the costs related to administrative and penal sanctions or customer complaints, except in cases arising from the fault of the counterparty; taking commercial reprisals such as removing products from the list, reducing the amount of products ordered, stopping marketing or campaign-like services related to these products or imposing financial obligations on the grounds that the provisions to be applied in cases of non-compliance based on objective criteria such as failure to comply with the agreed delivery date, failure to meet the product quality and storage conditions are not included in the contract or on the grounds that an application has been made to public institutions or judicial authorities; causing damage to the other party by making untrue or misleading statements or notifications regarding the scale of the enterprise, products and activities; returning agricultural and food products that can be spoiled within thirty days from the date of production, excluding fast-moving consumer goods, on the grounds that they cannot be sold after delivery or transfer of ownership will also be considered unfair commercial practices.

Another amendment introduced under the Regulation concerns the regulation of payment periods for the supply of agricultural and food products between producers, suppliers and retail businesses. The duration of payments for agricultural and food products that are perishable within thirty days from the date of production shall not exceed thirty days if the creditor is micro or small, the debtor is medium or large scale, or the creditor is medium and the debtor is large scale, and forty-five days in other cases; the duration of payments for other agricultural and food products shall not exceed sixty days if the creditor is micro or small, the debtor is medium or large scale, or the creditor is medium and the debtor is large scale.

We would also like to point out that the new regulation authorizes the Ministry of Commerce to impose an obligation to impose the obligation to sell food products for diseases requiring medical nutrition treatment on chain stores with a sales area of more than 250 square meters, whose field of operation is the sale of fast-moving consumer goods and whose number of branches is more than 200.

The amendments will enter into force on 01.01.2024.