Turkish Competition Law Newsletter - 2023 Autumn Issue

We usher in this Autumn season with another eventful agenda from the Turkish Competition Authority (the “Authority” or the “TCA”). Before delving into the headlines of the season, we believe a brief overview of the Authority’s activities could be insightful to underscore our point: The Authority initiated six new investigations in the first half of the season and concluded six different existing investigations. Moreover, it cleared twenty transactions across various industries and published sixty reasoned decisions, which involve highly debated probes, levying fines on major technology entities such as Meta and Elon Musk.

Starting with Meta, the company was fined EUR 18.6 million for abusing its dominant position by collecting personal data through changes to WhatsApp’s privacy policy. It is reasonable to assume that this case, along with the increasing use of personal data by other tech giants, prompted the Authority to delve deeper into the intersection between data protection and competition, making this topic one of the highlights of the season. This is substantiated by a recent announcement from the Authority stating they have signed an official information exchange and cooperation protocol with the Turkish Personal Data Protection Authority, aiming to foster effective competition in the relevant market and to enhance consumers’ control over their personal data.

Another notable event this year was the monetary fine imposed on Elon Musk, marking the TCA’s first gun-jumping case involving the novel technology undertaking concept. The Authority recently published the reasoned decision of the Musk case, revealing interesting details on why Musk/Twitter did not notify the transaction. One of the main arguments raised by Twitter was that the deal was signed before the enactment of the technology undertaking amendment. The Authority, however, rejected Twitter’s arguments, accepting the closing date as the date when the control change occurred and decided to fine the acquirer, Elon Musk, for violating the suspension requirement.

These developments underscore the Authority’s diligence in identifying violations and imposing monetary fines. The President of the TCA publicly acknowledged that the Authority has ramped up its investments and capacity to analyse digital data and information technology, naturally leading to an uptick in the number of investigations as well as on-site inspections. This is also reflected in the Authority’s recently published annual report for the year 2022, showcasing the Authority’s enforcement activity in numbers: A total of 342 cases were concluded, encompassing 78 competition infringement cases, 19 exemption/negative clearance applications, and 245 merger control cases. Moreover, the TCA conducted an astonishing number of on-site inspections – 831 in total – and 54 investigations, resulting in a total of TRY 1.73 billion in administrative fines.

In this regard, we will explore a variety of the aforementioned topics in this Autumn Issue, which we trust you will find beneficial.

You may reach the entire newsletter here.