The New Regulation defines the terms “provincial director”, “Public Receivables Collection Platform”, “Registered Electronic Mail”, “Registered Electronic Mail Account” and “National Judiciary Informatics System”. According to these definitions, provincial director means the provincial director of trade; Public Receivables Collection Platform means the set of applications developed by the Revenue Administration that coordinates all the work relating to the collection and follow-up processes of institutions’ transactions and provides feedback and reporting on their outputs; registered electronic mail means the qualified form of electronic mail that provides legal evidence regarding its use, including the sending and delivery of electronic messages; registered electronic mail account means the electronic mail account created in the registered electronic mail system capable of sending and receiving original messages and receiving registered electronic mail messages; and National Judiciary Informatics System means the information system established for the conduct of judicial services in electronic form.
Pursuant to Article 6 of the New Regulation, the monetary threshold for mandatory application to consumer arbitration committees has been raised to TRY 30,000. Under the Former Regulation, this amount was TRY 15,430 as of 2022.
The New Regulation abolishes the allocation of jurisdiction based on the amount in dispute. The Former Regulation distinguished between metropolitan municipalities, non-metropolitan provinces and districts according to the amount in dispute. From now on, the amount in dispute has no bearing on the determination of the competent arbitration committee. As regards territorial jurisdiction, the consumer arbitration committee at the consumer’s place of residence or at the place where the consumer transaction was carried out remains competent.
Significant changes have also been made to the provision on applications to consumer arbitration committees. The information that must be included in applications now also covers “for citizens of other countries, the passport number or foreign identity number, and, where the applicant is not a consumer, the tax identification number, address and other contact details, if any” and, where the applicant is represented by an attorney, “the attorney’s name, surname, tax identification number and address”. Article 11/5 of the New Regulation provides that “where the information required in applications is missing or inconsistent, the president of the consumer arbitration committee shall request additional information or documents from the applicant in writing, granting a period of seven days”.
The procedure for requesting information and documents by the consumer arbitration committee, and for responses by the parties concerned, has been changed. Under the Former Regulation, letters requesting information and documents were, as a rule, sent to the person concerned by registered mail. Under the New Regulation, electronic notification has become the main method for requesting information and documents. The New Regulation also allows responses regarding the requested information and documents to be sent to the registered electronic mail account of the relevant consumer arbitration committee.
The New Regulation sets out the grounds for rejecting an application. Pursuant to Article 20 of the New Regulation, the consumer arbitration committee shall reject the application in the event of “lis pendens, a finalised case or the existence of a final judgment”.
The provision on extending the decision period has been amended in favour of the consumer. Previously, the decision period could be extended by up to six months, taking into account the nature of the application made to the consumer arbitration committee; Article 21/1 of the New Regulation reduces this period to three months.
The period for notification of the decision has been extended to fifteen days from the date of the decision. Under the Former Regulation, the decision of the consumer arbitration committee was to be notified to the parties in writing within ten business days from the date on which it was rendered.
The New Regulation regulates the correction of decisions in detail. Article 25 of the New Regulation, entitled “Correction of the decision”, provides that matters subject to correction shall be placed on the agenda of the consumer arbitration committee as a priority and concluded. Furthermore, whereas the Former Regulation contained no provision on the correction minutes, the New Regulation lists the minimum elements that such minutes must contain.
The New Regulation introduces the possibility of supplementing the decision. This possibility, which did not exist under the Former Regulation, is set out in Article 26/1 of the New Regulation: “Each party may, within fifteen days from the notification of the final decision, request that the decision be supplemented with respect to matters raised in the original application on which no decision was rendered.”
An exception has been introduced to orders for litigation costs and attorney’s fees against the consumer. Accordingly, where an objection to a decision rendered in favour of the consumer is accepted, Article 27/5 provides an exception regarding the attorney’s fees to be awarded against the consumer: “However, where the decision is annulled because information or a document that existed but was not submitted to the consumer arbitration committee is submitted to the consumer court, no litigation costs or attorney’s fees may be awarded against the consumer.”
The steps to be taken where the dispute is resolved in favour of the consumer have been changed. Previously, after the notification and expert fees had been paid by the other party to the relevant tax office within one month, the receipt evidencing payment had to be submitted to the relevant consumer arbitration committee within the same period; this requirement has now been abolished.
Pursuant to Article 31 of the Regulation, entitled “Entry into force”, Article 11/5 on the completion of the mandatory documents to be included in the application and Article 26 on the supplementing of decisions will enter into force on 1 January 2023, and the other provisions on 1 October 2022.
Pursuant to the transitional provision of the Regulation, “the provisions of this Regulation shall also apply to applications made to consumer arbitration committees” before 1 October 2022 “that have not yet been decided”.
The content of this article does not constitute a legal opinion. Demircioğlu Koçak Bayraktar Attorney Partnership shall under no circumstance be held responsible for the content hereof. It is recommended for the readers to contact our team for detailed information and professional support regarding the content of this article.