Reporting Counterfeit Goods on a Turkish Marketplace: The Notice Under E-Commerce Law Art. 9 and the Seller's Counter-Notice

The complaint has five compulsory items, the removal runs to forty-eight hours, the republication to twenty-four, and the second complaint on the same allegation is barred.

The Rule in Two Sentences

A Turkish marketplace must take a listing down when the owner of an intellectual or industrial property right complains with supporting documents, and it must put the same listing back when the seller answers with documents that show the opposite. Both halves are in a single provision — Article 9(3) of the Law on the Regulation of Electronic Commerce No. 6563 — and brand owners who read only the first half tend to be surprised twice: once when the goods reappear, and again when the marketplace declines to process a repeat complaint.

The provision was rewritten in 2022 and now sits with an implementing regulation, the Regulation on E-Commerce Intermediary Service Providers and E-Commerce Service Providers, published in the Official Gazette of 29 December 2022. The Law supplies the obligation; the Regulation supplies the paperwork and the clock. This note deals with online listings only. Where the same goods are moving in a container rather than through a checkout, the border procedure is a different mechanism with different deadlines, described in our note on the customs seizure of counterfeit goods.

Two definitions carry the whole scheme. The e-commerce intermediary service provider (elektronik ticaret aracı hizmet sağlayıcı, ETAHS) is the operator of the marketplace where third parties contract with buyers. The e-commerce service provider (elektronik ticaret hizmet sağlayıcı, ETHS) is the seller on that marketplace. Obligations attach to the first; the goods belong to the second.

What the Complaint Must Contain

Article 12/1 of the Regulation lists five items, and Article 12/2 states the consequence of leaving any of them out: the complaint is not processed, and the intermediary informs the applicant of the deficiency. The forty-eight-hour removal period therefore runs from a complete file, which is why an incomplete first attempt costs days rather than minutes.

The complaint is filed through the marketplace’s internal communication system (dâhili iletişim sistemi), through a notary, or by KEP. The internal system is the ordinary route and is defined in Article 4/1(ç) of the Regulation as the channel the operator has to set up for every communication with its sellers on the marketplace.

One distinction is worth drawing at the outset: the three documents in item (a) are alternatives to one another, and the one filed defines the right the file rests on. A trademark complaint needs the TÜRKPATENT certificate; a complaint resting on copyright or neighbouring rights needs the banderole form or the collecting society’s certificate of activity. Where a single listing attracts both a trademark claim and a design or copyright claim, each claim has to be supported by its own document — a multi-ground complaint filed with one registration certificate risks being treated as deficient in the unsupported part. Item (b) works the same way: whoever files on the right holder’s behalf has to evidence the authority to do so, and a large share of first-round rejections are applications made through a local distributor or agency with nothing on file to authorise them.

On the substance, the reasons in item (c) are worth drafting against the statute rather than in general terms. Article 7/2 of Industrial Property Law No. 6769 gives the proprietor the right to prevent the use of an identical sign on goods within the registration, and of a similar sign where there is a likelihood of confusion. Article 7/3(b) makes it clear that offering goods for supply and stocking them for that purpose are caught, so a live listing infringes whether or not a single unit has sold. Article 29/1(c) adds the seller who deals in infringing goods knowing, or where he ought to know, that the mark has been imitated. A complaint that identifies the sign, the goods, and the registration class is a document the marketplace can act on; one that recites brand values is not.

Article 7/5 sets a limit that a well-drafted complaint respects: a proprietor cannot prevent honest use in the ordinary course of trade, including descriptive statements about the kind or quality of goods and the indication of intended purpose for accessories and spare parts. Listings of compatible parts are the usual false positive.

The Counter-Notice and the Twenty-Four Hours That Follow

The second sentence of Article 9(3) is unconditional in the statute: on the seller’s objection based on information and documents showing the contrary of the complaint, the intermediary republishes the product. The Regulation narrows it. Under Article 14/1 the product is restored, within twenty-four hours of the objection arriving, where the seller’s case is clearly apparent from the documents filed under Article 13.

Article 13/1 tells the seller what to file, and item (c) is the operative one: invoices or equivalent documents capable of proving the goods are genuine, together with contracts and other evidence tracing the chain backwards from the seller to the right holder or to persons who placed the goods on the market with the right holder’s authority. This is the exhaustion argument in documentary form. Article 152/1 of Law No. 6769 puts acts concerning goods placed on the market by the right holder or with its consent outside the scope of the right — subject to Article 152/2, which preserves the proprietor’s right to prevent commercial use of such goods where they have been altered or impaired.

Three features of the review deserve emphasis, because they explain outcomes that otherwise look arbitrary:

• The marketplace is not a tribunal. Article 14/3 confines its examination to the information and documents obtained from the seller. It does not test authenticity, commission an examination, or weigh the parties’ evidence against each other.
• Republication is not a finding. Article 14/4 preserves the parties’ right to apply to the judicial and administrative authorities under the general provisions, in the same terms as the closing sentence of Article 9(3).
• The second complaint is barred by default. Under Article 14/2, once a listing has been restored the intermediary will not process further complaints about the same product and the same allegation unless new documents proving infringement are produced, and it must say so to the applicant.

That last rule is the one that reshapes strategy. The complaint is not a button that can be pressed repeatedly; the first filing should already anticipate the invoice chain the seller will produce.

The Timeline, and What Sits on Each Side of It

The single gap in that table is not deliberate, but it decides outcomes: the Regulation fixes no period at all within which the seller must object. A removal is therefore not a decision that becomes final, and a listing can return on an objection that arrives weeks later. The practical consequence for a right holder is that the file does not close when the removal notice comes in — that is the point at which the invoice chain the seller is likely to produce starts to be assessed.

Two further duties of the intermediary sit around this timeline. Under Article 9(2) of the Law and Article 10/2 of the Regulation, an intermediary that becomes aware content is unlawful removes it within forty-eight hours and reports the matter, with reasons, to the seller and to the relevant public authorities; Article 10/3 lists the situations in which awareness is deemed to arise, including notification of a court decision. And under Article 11/3 of Law No. 6563, intermediaries and sellers must keep the records and electronic data relating to their transactions for ten years — a retention period that makes it worth asking for the trail when a dispute later reaches court.

Non-compliance with Article 9(2) or 9(3) is an administrative offence. Article 12/1(ç) of Law No. 6563 sets a fine for each breach, expressed in the Law in its 2022 nominal figures of TRY 10,000 to TRY 100,000 and revalued for each calendar year by communiqué of the Ministry of Trade; the applicable band is the one in the current year’s communiqué rather than the figure printed in the statute.

When the Notice Route Runs Out

The takedown procedure removes a listing. It does not stop a seller opening a second account, it does not reach stock in a warehouse, and after Article 14/2 has been invoked it does not repeat. At that point the file moves to instruments that bind. The notice procedure itself is only one duty in a much wider compliance set that Law No. 6563 places on marketplaces and their sellers, which is the subject of our e-commerce and marketplace law work. What the same events look like from the seller’s side of the counter — the suspension sequence, the payout hold and the claims available against the marketplace itself — is set out in marketplace seller rights in Türkiye; and where the goods turn out to be genuine stock offered by a former distributor that has put the mark in its own name, the notice route addresses the wrong problem altogether, as when your Turkish distributor registers your trademark explains.

Civil proceedings under Article 149 of Law No. 6769 allow the court to determine that the acts constitute infringement, to stop and remove them, to order seizure of the infringing goods, and to award pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages; Articles 150 and 151 measure loss as actual damage plus lost earnings. Article 159 allows interim relief before or with the claim, including seizure of the goods wherever they are found, customs administrations and free zones included, and the court may order security; under Article 159/3 the interim-relief provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure No. 6100 apply to matters this Law does not regulate. These remedies sit on the trademark litigation side, and where an import channel is involved they run in parallel with the border tools set out under anti-counterfeiting and customs.

A criminal complaint is the other lever, and its structure explains why sellers often settle. Article 30/1 of Law No. 6769 punishes producing, offering for sale, selling, importing, exporting, purchasing, holding, transporting or storing goods that infringe by imitation. Prosecution requires registration in Türkiye (Article 30/5) and a complaint by the right holder (Article 30/6). Article 30/7 then provides that a person offering or selling counterfeit goods is not sentenced if he discloses where he obtained them and thereby enables the producers to be identified and the goods seized. In other words, the statute rewards the seller for handing over the supplier — which is usually what a brand owner wants from a marketplace file, since one workshop is worth a hundred listings.

The buyer sits outside all of this. Article 153/1 of Law No. 6769 provides that the right holder cannot bring the civil actions in that Law, nor complain for a criminal prosecution, against persons who hold or use goods placed on the market by the infringer to the extent of their personal needs. A warning letter aimed at the end consumer is unfounded, and it also takes the file away from its real addressee.

One adjacent provision is easy to miss. Article 20 of the Regulation forbids a marketplace or a seller from carrying out marketing and promotion in online search engines on keywords made up of the registered trademark that is the exclusive main element of a domain name recorded in the Ministry’s e-commerce information system (ETBİS) and belongs to a person with whom it is not in economic integrity, unless that person’s positive declaration of intent has been obtained beforehand in writing or electronically. The complaint is made by the right-holding marketplace or seller to the Ministry’s KEP address, with the registration certificate and a notarised copy of an electronic determination report drawn up through the Turkish Notaries Union information system under Article 198/A of the Notaries Law No. 1512. Where the Ministry finds a breach it applies an administrative sanction and notifies the parties, who must eliminate the breach within twenty-four hours and add the keyword as a negative, exact-match term across their campaigns.

Preparing a File That Survives the Counter-Notice

The measures that decide these matters are taken before the complaint is filed.

Register first. Article 12/1(a) of the Regulation accepts a TÜRKPATENT certificate, not a foreign one, and Article 30/5 of Law No. 6769 makes Turkish registration a condition of criminal liability. Owners without a domicile in Türkiye must act before the Office through a registered trademark attorney under Article 160/3, and transactions the principal carries out without one are deemed not to have been made. Where the portfolio is not yet in place, the sequence is set out in our guide to trademark registration for foreign owners, and the classes chosen there determine which listings can be reached later.

Keep the registration usable. A seller facing a claim will look for weaknesses in the right rather than defend the goods, and Article 29/2 of Law No. 6769 allows the non-use defence to be raised in infringement proceedings, with the five-year period assessed as at the date of the claim. The exposure is explained in our note on the five-year non-use rule, and it is a portfolio question rather than an enforcement one.

Fix the evidence before the listing disappears. A removed listing takes its photographs, price, seller particulars and buyer comments away with it. Capturing the page, the seller’s registered particulars and the offer terms — through a notarised electronic determination where the matter is likely to reach court — is what allows the same facts to be pleaded months later.

Read the intermediation contract. Article 15/1(ğ) of the Regulation requires the intermediation agreement between marketplace and seller to address proof of ownership of intellectual and industrial property rights and the measures taken on infringement. It is a useful document to have in mind when a marketplace’s internal process appears to depart from the statutory one.

Decide what a win looks like. Removing one listing is cheap and repeatable; identifying the source is neither, but it ends the problem. Where the same goods keep reappearing under new seller names, the file is a supply-chain matter and belongs with the wider intellectual property programme rather than with a monitoring routine, and the objections and cancellations that protect the registration itself — including opposition before TÜRKPATENT — belong in the same plan. Where the material copied is a work rather than a trade mark — photographs, product copy, software or design files — the removal route runs through the copyright legislation instead, and the two available procedures are compared in online copyright takedown in Türkiye.