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. On December 20, 2015, Turkey set the threshold for 2016 in its Communiqué on Raising the Monetary Limits Set Forth in Article 68 of the Consumer Protection Law and Article 6 of the Consumer Arbitral Tribunals Regulation, raising the thresholds by 5.58%.
Consumer complaints below the threshold of TRY 3,480 (approx. USD 1,200) must be submitted to consumer arbitral tribunals, whereas those above this threshold must be submitted to consumer courts.
Possible implications
From January 1, 2016, 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.
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