Law No. 6728 on the Amendments to Certain Pieces of Legislation for the Enhancement of the Investment Environment ("Law No. 6728") has been put into effect on 09.08.2016 by way of its announcement in the Official Gazette numbered 29796.
Law No. 6728 has introduced significant changes in the provisions of the Turkish Commercial Law No. 6102 ("TCC") and Turkish Cheque Law No. 5941 ("Check Law"). Amendments to the TCC can be summarized as follows; (i) company incorporation costs have been significantly reduced by removing the requirement for the notarization of the articles of association, (ii) the process for changing legal form of corporates has been improved, (iii) an easier and economic way for drawing up signature circulars for corporates has been introduced, (iv) liquidation process of corporates is accelerated and (v) a new barcode system which is going to include necessary information regarding check account owners has been introduced for the checks. In parallel with the foregoing, criminal sanctions are going to be imposed on the issuers of bad-checks pursuant to the amendments on Check Law.
In addition to the above, certain provisions of the Execution and Bankruptcy Law No. 2004 concerning application for the postponement of bankruptcy, the cure project that needs to be presented for court approval, the appointment of trustees who will run the company during postponement term and the measures which may be taken by court to protect and preserve the company's assets during postponement period have been amended.
Apart from the foregoing, there have been made significant and far-reaching amendments to a number of Turkish Tax laws namely, to the Income Tax Law No. 193, the Tax Procedure Law No. 213, the Stamp Tax Law No. 488, the Value Added Tax Law No. 3065 and the Corporate Tax Law No. 5520 with a view to facilitating new investments.
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