Reports

Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19 (“Coronavirus”), has negatively affected the business life in a very short period due to the precautionary measures taken in order to prevent its rapid spread, such as ban of traveling, halt of production, quarantine practices, and national emergency resolutions, since its very first appearance in Wuhan, China. This epidemic, which has reached to a global threat, has been declared by the World Health Organization (“WHO”) as a “pandemic” (geographic epidemic above regions and groups) as of March 11, 2020.

“The Law Amending Certain Laws numbered 7226” (the “Omnibus Bill”) was published on the Official Gazette dated 26 March 2020 and numbered 31080. The Omnibus Bill consists of a series of amendments and additions in various areas of legislation in light of the purpose of minimising the potential negative reflections of the coronavirus (“COVID-19”) outbreak on business life, which has an intense impact in Turkey and worldwide.

In order to prevent the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic, also known as COVID-19 (“Coronavirus”), which has spread to the whole world, many precautions are being taken by governments, institutions and organizations. The precautions and measures taken in Turkey were examined in our previous article published on March 23, 2020 with the title “Precautions and Measures Taken against Covid-19 Pandemic”.  As a continuation of our previous article, we hereby wish to mention the measures taken recently in light of the current developments.

A number of regulations have been introduced pursuant to the Announcement published on the website of the Ministry of Trade (the "MoT") on 20 March 2020.

Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19 (“Coronavirus”), has negatively affected the business life in a very short period due to the precautionary measures taken in order to prevent its rapid spread, such as ban of traveling, halt of production, quarantine practices, and national emergency resolutions, since its very first appearance in Wuhan, China. This epidemic, which has reached to a global threat, has been declared by the World Health Organization (“WHO”) as a “pandemic” (geographic epidemic above regions and groups) as of March 11, 2020.

The Coronavirus pandemic, also known as COVID-19 (“Coronavirus”), which is declared as “pandemic” by the World Health Organization (“WHO”) as of 11.03.2020 and spreads rapidly in our country in a short time, prepares the ground for a global social and economic crisis that may arise in the next few months, in addition to having a global health crisis. For this reason, governments, institutions, organizations and companies have taken actions to take all measures in all respects, primarily protecting the public and human health, and then economic measures. In line with the measures taken in relation to the pandemic, efforts are made to prevent the damage caused by quarantine practices, closure of workplaces, import and export restrictions, and a reduction in consumption, and to reduce the negative impact of current measures.

The pandemic, apart from the tragic human loss, has been having and will continue to have a profound economic impact and naturally, this shall have legal consequences especially in terms of executing ongoing commercial agreements and in terms of fulfilling obligations under agreements. However, whether or not Coronavirus to be considered as a force majeure is still a matter of debate because of various reasons.