NEWSLETTER-2017

235 LAW OF OBLIGATIONS Critique of the Decisions The 11th Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation, in the decision quoted, and in other decisions that are set forth in the footnotes, based the compensation claims on provisions regulating torts, and while de- termining the commencement of the statute of limitations, began with stating the acts in violation of the Law on the Protection of Competi- tion constituting torts, then deduced –in a highly arguable manner- that each misdemeanor constitutes a crime, and that according to Article 72/1, sentence 2 of the Turkish Code of Obligations (Article 60 of the abolished Turkish Code of Obligations), the statute of limitations regulated under the Misdemeanors Law shall be applied to compensa- tion claims based on the provisions that regulate torts. However, it concluded that an extended period of statute of limitations, according to this Article, shall begin from the application to the Competition Authority after the awareness of the damage. Even if, for one instant, misdemeanors are regarded as crimes, the determining method of the commencement of the extended period of statute of limitations could not be regarded as accurate. Indeed, also as explicitly accepted in the doctrine, the extended period of statute of limitations to be applied according toArticle 72 of the Turkish Code of Obligations begins with the realization of the tortious act 2 . In reality, the Court of Cassation resolved along the same lines in its other decisions. For example, according to the 4th Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation: “The matter in dispute is a tortious act, and the defendants had insulted the claimants. For this reason, they had been senten- ced in a penal suit, and then this decision had been finalized by the approval of the Court of Cassation. The statute of limitations for the claims resulting from tortious acts regulated under Article 60/1 of the Code of Obligations is one year. Article 60/2 of the same code regulates that if the act constitutes a crime within the scope of criminal law, the statute of limitations regulated for this crime shall be applied. Article 102/4 of the Turkish Penal Code regulates the statute of limitations for the act that is the matter in 2 Haluk Nami Nomer, Borçlar Hukuku, Genel Hükümler, İstanbul 2015, p. 242.