Development of Telemedicine Activities in Turkey
Telemedicine is not explicitly regulated under Turkish law. The existing legal framework, including the Medical Deontology By-law and Ethical Principles for Physicians, prohibits remote examination, diagnosis, and treatment of patients. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the legal gap in telemedicine became more serious as private hospitals especially started to provide online healthcare services to patients who could not visit healthcare centres due to the COVID-19 risk. The fact… »
Supply of Pharmaceutical Products from Abroad and Patent Rights
The supply of pharmaceutical products to Turkey via the named patient programme (the “NPP”) is one of the exceptional importation regimes for pharmaceutical products. Where a pharmaceutical product is not granted marketing authorisation in Turkey, or it is granted marketing authorisation but not found in the market where there is a patient need, it can be supplied via this particular route by physician request. If the product is approved for the NPP, it is added to the… »
Eco-Friendly Advertisements!
When you watch the commercials, do you often feel like advertising companies are working hard to convince you that their products or services are “eco”, “environmentally friendly”, “nature friendly”, “green” and “recyclable”? Does environmentally-friendly feature of a product have any impact on your preference to purchase or use it? In fact, are we yet at the end of an era of advertising products that are not “green” enough but promoted to be “green”? The “green advertising”… »
Turkey's Ongoing Decline In Corruption Perception Index
Transparency International’s annual report 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index (“CPI 2022”), aiming to measure the perceived level of public sector corruption based on various sources with the contributions of businesspeople, NGOs and country experts, was released on January 31, 2023. The index ranks 180 countries/territories by their perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). CPI is regarded as one of the most credible… »
Notification Obligation to Tax Office for Registered Transactions in the Trade Registry is Abolished
The General Communiqué no. 546 on Tax Procedural Law (the "Communiqué") which determines the procedures and principles regarding the acceptance of the notifications made electronically by the Ministry of Trade to the Ministry of Treasury and Finance (the "Ministry") from the transactions registered in the trade registry as notifications made by taxpayers was published in the Official Gazette dated 18 January 2023, to be effective as of 1 February 2023. Within the scope of the… »
Amendment to Press Labour Law
Under Turkish law, journalists are subject to Law No. 5953 on Arrangement of Relations Between Employers and Employees in the Field of Press (“Press Labour Law”), which sets out the terms and conditions of their employment. Former wording of Article 1 of Press Labour Law stated that the law covered those who work in any kind of intellectual or artistic works at news and photo agencies, periodical publications and newspapers published in Turkey and who fall outside the… »