Recent Development
In Turkey, consumer complaints against sellers and manufacturers may only be brought in Turkish consumer courts if the amount in dispute is above a certain threshold. These thresholds are set shortly before the beginning of each calendar year. Consumer complaints below the jurisdictional thresholds may only be brought in a consumer arbitral tribunal. Through Communiqué No. 6502 on Raising the Monetary Limits Set Forth in Article 68 of the Consumer Protection Law and Article 6 of the Consumer Arbitral Tribunals Regulation, Turkey set the threshold for 2017, raising it by 3.83 percent.
Consumer complaints below the threshold of TRY 3,610 (approximately USD 1,030) must be submitted to consumer arbitral tribunals, whereas those above this threshold must be submitted to consumer courts.
Possible implications
In 2017, if a consumer fails to submit his/her complaint to the appropriate consumer arbitral tribunal or consumer court, his/her application will be subject to rejection at the preliminary examination phase. This would also allow defendant companies to raise a valid objection.
