"Made in Turkey" – How reliable is information about origin?

Turkish case law primarily deals with designations of origin in terms of competition law. Pursuant to Section 19 of the Turkish Customs Act, a country may be designated as the country of origin for an item that is manufactured in more than one country if a new item has been manufactured in this country, or a significant production process has been carried out in this country which has been carried out in economic terms as the last necessary work process in specially intended operations. In these supreme court rulings, the main question is whether the information about the designation of origin of products was feigned in order to avoid customs fees and taxes.

In the assessment of whether an essential production process has actually taken place in the declared country of origin, the Turkish courts assume deceit about the country of origin, if only 10% of the components of the item originate from the declared country of origin, and 90% were imported from another country, i.e. 10% are packaging materials and screws, etc., and all other components were only assembled in the declared country of origin.

A deception about the country of origin is also assumed if only quality controls, labelling and packaging of the item were carried out in the declared country of origin, and the factory price of the item is composed in such a way that more than 80% of the factory price consists of the purchasing costs for components from another country.

Autor: Senem Kathrin Güçlüer