Turkish Competition Law Newsletter - 2023 Winter Issue

In this Winter edition, we begin our remarks by saying that the Turkish Competition Authority (the “TCA”) completed its 25th year with impressive work, including forward-thinking studies, legislation proposals about digital economy and active competition law enforcement in various sectors. Indeed, in 2022, the TCA concluded 27 investigations and imposed monetary fines totaling approximately EUR 100 million. While this is lower than the amount of total fines imposed in 2021, which was EUR 267 million, it still confirms the current administration’s aggressive enforcement in comparison to five years ago. Most of the fine in 2021 arose from the TCA’s first-ever hub-and-spoke cartel decision, where the TCA imposed a recordbreaking fine of EUR 162.5 million on a supplier and five food and hygiene retailers that fixed prices in 2021. This was followed by a second hub-andspoke cartel decision in 2022 in the same sector.

Digital markets were also under the TCA spotlight in 2022, which has led to proposals for specialised legislative framework in relation to such markets. Indeed, in addition to the introduction of the concept of technology undertakings with the goal of catching killer acquisitions in digital markets, the TCA also recently introduced a proposal to amend the main competition law legislation to ensure fair competition and promote consumer welfare in digital markets.

This Issue starts with a look at the TCA’s Merger and Acquisition Outlook Report of 2022 in an effort to provide insight into the Turkish merger control regime based on the 245 merger filings the TCA received in 2022. Although the TCA significantly increased the jurisdictional turnover thresholds applicable to transaction parties through an amendment in 2022, there only seems to be a slight decrease in the total number of cases. We consider that the newly introduced concept of technology undertaking might be the main reason for this slight decrease. We will aim to shed light on the summaries of the increasing number of hub-and spoke cases in Turkey, as well as the TCA’s increased enforcement in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, where the prices were excessively increased following the emergence of COVID-19 in Turkey. Last but not least, this Issue finally will refer to a number of precedents, where the TCA fined companies for submitting misleading information, which once again confirms the TCA’s aggressive approach to competition law enforcement.

We hope you will find this Issue helpful.

You can reach the 2023 Winter Issue of the newsletter here.