A new provisional article has been added to the Law on Amendment on Some Laws dated 25.3.2020 and numbered 7226; with the Article 15 of the Law on Amendment on the Tax Procedure Law and Some Laws (numbered 7318) published in the Official Gazette dated 30 April 2021 and numbered 31470. With this provisional article, some regulations have been legislated in order to prevent loss of rights, by taking into account the restrictions applied across the country within the scope of struggling against Covid-19 pandemic. With this regulation;
A. The cheques which has their last day of submission between 30 April 2021 and 31 May 2021 cannot be submitted between these dates (including these dates). However, they can be submitted within the remaining submission period as of 1 June 2021.
B. Execution and bankruptcy proceedings for receivables arising from bills of exchange cannot be commenced, precautionary distraint decisions cannot be made and the proceedings that are already initiated will pause between the dates of 30 April 2021 and 31 May 2021 (including these dates).
C. Execution and bankruptcy proceedings for receivables of the public administrations that arise due to public law or private law within the scope of the Public Financial Management and Control Law numbered 5018 cannot be commenced between the dates of 30 April 2021 and 31 May 2021 (including these dates).
In this regard, an announcement is published in the Official Gazette. Herein; it is stated that it is aimed to reduce the possible negative effects of the expected slowdown in the commercial life on the tradesmen with the complete lockdown and to allow payments to be planned within the period of complete lockdown and besides, not to initiate legal proceedings until the end of May 2021 regarding the debts of merchants and tradesmen arising from the bills of exchange between 30/4/2021 and 31/5/2021 and especially their debts to public administrations in this period.
Moreover, in terms of implementation of this article (Article 15), it is regulated that;
- In order to prevent loss of rights; the cheques which has their last day of submission between 30/04/2021 and 31/05/ 2021 cannot be submitted between these dates (including these dates); that they can be submitted within the remaining submission period after 1/06/2021,
- In case the cheques that have their submission deadline between the dates of 30/04/2021 and 31/05/ 2021 are submitted to the banks in this mentioned period, the amount of the cheque should be paid if the account owner has enough account balance to do so,
- In case the cheques that have their submission deadline between the dates of 30/04/2021 and 31/05/ 2021 are submitted to the banks in this mentioned period, if the account owner does not have enough account balance for making the necessary payment for the cheque, it should not be proceeded to recording these cheques as “dud cheques” under Cheque Law before 01/06/2021, necessary transactions may be carried out after 01/06/2021 regarding cheques in question.
The Ministry of Commerce has also published an announcement in this respect, too: https://ticaret.gov.tr/haberler/basin-duyurusu