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The 2nd revision of the Circular UOD-2020/2G (“the Circular”) regarding the transport of cargo in the passenger cabin of aircrafts is published on April 29, 2020, by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (“DGCA”) as part of the measures taken against COVID-19 in Turkey. The purpose of the Circular is to enable the transportation of the medical equipment internationally and to protect the market place of Turkey with regards to the cargo transportation.

As per the Presidential Decree No. 2480 published in the Official Gazette No. 31114 dated April 30, 2020, judiciary period suspension stipulated under provisional article 1 of the Law Amending Certain Acts No.7226 published in the Official Gazette No. 31080 dated March 26, 2020 is temporarily extended with the exception of the mandatory administrative application periods stipulated under Public Procurement Law No. 4734, due to the Covid-19.

As per the new announcement published by the Turkish Medicines And Medical Devices Agency (“the Agency”), the previously published announcements on the pre-authorization application processes regarding the certain export prohibited products  have been updated and as of April 27, 2020, the applications to be made to the Agency shall continue in accordance with the new guide attached to the announcement.

A new e-filing system has been established for complaints through Turkish Public Procurement Authority’s (“Procurement Authority”) Electronic Public Procurement Platform (“EKAP”). The launch of the e-filing aims to prevent the loss of rights resulted from procedural mistakes in in-person/in mail applications. In the announcement published on the official website of the Procurement Authority on April 29, 2020, it was stated that a training video and guidelines were published regarding the process.

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak and its significant impacts in our daily lives, extremely intrusive data processing activities have been negotiated and taken into place by governments, public institutions, and organizations. In this respect, due to the measures taken in order to mitigate the risk regarding pandemic, many governments have decided to use geolocation tools to determine possibly infected ones by checking the routes that have been used by infected people.

As a precaution against the rapid spread of the global pandemic, many of the companies switched to remote working strategies and started to apply social distance rules to mitigate the effect of the Covid-19. With the increase in the number of people working remotely, companies and organizations will undoubtedly have to think about how to execute documents and contracts, along with the measures taken against the Covid-19.

As per the Law on Mitigating the Effects of the New Coronavirus (Covid-19) Outbreak on Economic and Social Life and the Law Amending Certain Laws published in the Official Gazette numbered 31102 on April 17, 2020; a new provisional article was added to Turkish Commercial Code numbered 6102 (“TCC”) highlighting the economic impacts of Covid-19 on the company resources.

Turkish Personal Data Protection Board (“Board”) released its recent rulings in summary regarding the application of the Law on the Protection of Personal Data No. 6698 (“Law No. 6698”) on April 15, 2020. In this information note, you will be provided extracts of these two summaries.

As per the Law Amending Certain Laws and Law on Mitigate the Effects of the New Coronavirus (Covid-19) Outbreak on Economic and Social Life published in the Official Gazette dated April 17, 2020 No. 31102, a new provisional article was added to the Labor Law numbered 4857 (“Law No. 4857”).

In order to reduce ripple effects of the Covid-19 pandemic some measures are taken regarding social and economic life in Turkey. With the Draft Amendment Law Amending Certain Acts (“Draft Law”), amendments to various laws including public procurement law, commercial law, employment law, maritime law, and internet and electronic communications law are introduced.

Turkish Personal Data Protection Authority (“the Authority”) has published a new announcement regarding the data processing activities on the location data for the purposes of combatting Covid-19.