The Turkish Competition Authority releases a leading food delivery platform from most of its binding commitments following the loss of its dominance, but keeps the narrow price parity commitment in place for two more years

This article examines the Turkish Competition Board’s (“Board”) Yemek Sepeti Decision^[1] (“Decision”), assessing a request for the removal of commitments made binding in 2021, under the “material change” condition of Article 43(4)(a) of Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition (“Law No. 4054”). Having found that Yemek Sepeti is no longer dominant, the Board removed the commitments on the mandatory “Joker” discount scheme, the minimum basket amount and “Vale” pricing, but maintained the narrow most-favoured-customer (“MFC”) commitment for two more years, subject to re-evaluation upon application. The Decision was adopted by majority, the Chairman and Deputy Chairman dissenting jointly. It consolidates the Board’s position on the route to release from binding commitments, on the material change condition and on price parity once dominance has ceased.

1. Background

The Board opened an investigation on 4 June 2020 into whether Yemek Sepeti, then Türkiye’s leading food delivery platform and a Delivery Hero subsidiary, had violated Articles 4 and/or 6 of Law No. 4054 through its narrow MFC condition, Joker scheme, minimum basket amounts and Vale pricing. It found the platform to hold near-monopoly power and to be dominant throughout 2015-2020.

The concerns identified in the 2021 decision^[2] are worth setting out, since the commitments under review answered them. Yemek Sepeti was characterized as a gate-keeper. The restaurants routed the bulk of their delivery orders through it, no effective rival existed and they were dependent accordingly. The narrow MFC condition was enforced by requiring restaurants to submit their brochures and aligning the platform’s terms with them; since many brochures matched in-house menus, it could reach dine-in prices, and it was found capable of raising food prices while frustrating restaurants’ efforts to build their own channels and escape commission costs.

The mandatory Joker discount, under which a restaurant discounts for a user who has never ordered from it or has not done so for 120 days and to whose district it delivers, fell chiefly on single-outlet restaurants. It was unprofitable and open to abuse by users opening new accounts, while restaurants’ inability to offer the same discounts elsewhere left rivals disadvantaged. Minimum basket amounts, the order value below which a restaurant will not accept an order, obliged restaurants to send couriers for orders as small as a bottle of water, refusals attracting warnings and negative ratings. Vale, the platform’s courier service for restaurants without their own fleet, tied platform and courier services, its below-cost pricing being capable of exclusionary effects akin to predation. A first package was rejected as insufficient in November 2020; the second, submitted after service of the Investigation Report, was made binding on 28 January 2021 and implemented within nine months.

2. The request and the procedural route

In September 2024, some three years after implementation, Yemek Sepeti applied for the removal of the commitments, arguing that it was no longer dominant, that they had become functionless and that they deprived it of the ability to compete legitimately with TRENDYOL GO. In December 2024 the Board decided to examine whether the “material change” condition of Article 43(4)(a) of Law No. 4054 was met.

The procedural route is worth noting. On its wording, Article 43(4) does not provide for the removal of commitments; it empowers the Board to “reopen an investigation” where, among other things, there has been a material change in any element forming the basis of the decision. Here the same condition served as the gateway to a different outcome, release from part of the commitments. The material change condition had been applied before; twice in Şişecam, where commitments were revised in 2022 for demand growth, supply difficulties and energy costs and in 2023 to raise a supply cap after the Kahramanmaraş earthquake^[3], and in EssilorLuxottica, where a review built into the clearance ended in a three-year extension^[4]. What distinguishes the present Decision is that those files turned on commercial or exogenous circumstances affecting the workability of particular obligations and ended in revision or extension, whereas here the Board undertook a market-wide analysis of whether the committing party remains dominant and released it from part of its commitments altogether. That combination had not been tested before.

3. The Board’s assessment

3.1 Material change in the market

Drawing on data from its 2024-2025 courier-tying investigation into Yemek Sepeti^[5] and a pending file, the Board examined how the market had changed. Yemek Sepeti remains the leader on most parameters, but its share declined continuously until 2024 and TRENDYOL GO now ranks first by number of contracted restaurants. Entry by super-apps and retail brands such as TRENDYOL GO and Migros has neutralized the first-mover advantage as an entry barrier, a survey of 118 restaurants evidenced widespread multi-homing and restaurants held buyer power. Yemek Sepeti was therefore found not to be dominant under current market conditions.

3.2 The commitments removed

The Joker, minimum basket and Vale commitments addressed abuse-of-dominance concerns and rested on Yemek Sepeti’s ability to set market parameters unilaterally. Absent dominance, the Board considered such imposition would not succeed, noting that rivals offer comparable discounts voluntarily, multi-homing and switching are straightforward and Yemek Sepeti has used independent couriers since 2022. The material change condition being satisfied, these commitments were removed.

3.3 The narrow MFC commitment

The Board held that the narrow MFC commitment called for a different assessment. MFC conditions may be examined under Article 4 as well as Article 6, so the vertical restraint dimension provides a basis for maintaining it which does not depend on dominance. Tested against the block exemption, the market share exceeded the 30% threshold of Communiqué No. 2002/2 on Vertical Agreements.

Individual exemption was also unavailable, and the reasoning has an ironic edge. Yemek Sepeti argued that it had lost its market leadership; the Board answered that it had not lost enough of it. The platform still leads on most parameters and retains high brand recognition, so its practices continue to affect a significant part of the market, and because the MFC clauses of TRENDYOL GO and GETIR YEMEK have been held to benefit from the block exemption^[6], parity conditions are now applied by all three of the largest players, which gives rise to cumulative anticompetitive effects. The rivals whose rise freed Yemek Sepeti from its other commitments therefore worked against it here. Their growth ended its dominance, but their own parity clauses filled the market with the conditions that kept its commitment alive. The condition that competition not be eliminated in a significant part of the market was therefore not met and removal was inappropriate. The commitment continues for two years, after which Yemek Sepeti may apply for re-evaluation. The Decision may be challenged before the Ankara administrative courts within 60 days.

4. The dissent

Chairman Birol Küle and Deputy Chairman Ahmet Algan dissented. In their view, commitments serve to restore competition and nothing in the file justified a time limit. Yemek Sepeti was the first entrant, remains the first player in an excessively concentrated market and is the only major platform focused solely on food delivery. They considered the majority’s evidentiary basis, a nominal decline in market share and a survey centred on whether restaurants work exclusively with Yemek Sepeti, to be of low probative value, the real issue being the asymmetric relationship between the platform and its dependent restaurants. They observed that complaints concerning Yemek Sepeti’s pricing, commissions, forced discounts, forced courier services and exit barriers remained numerous despite the 2021 commitments, and argued that opening a new investigation, rather than lifting them, should have come to the fore. Removing commitments that had produced pro-competitive results was said to risk renewed exploitative and exclusionary strategies, harming restaurants and consumers.

5. Consolidation around the comparator

The rival whose rise underpinned the material change finding had itself changed hands before the Decision. In May 2025 the Board cleared Uber’s acquisition of sole control of TRENDYOL GO, Trendyol keeping a minority stake conferring no control^[7], the draft commercial agreement between them being left for separate examination under Articles 4 and 5. In June 2026 it cleared, subject to commitments including a USD 500 million investment, Uber’s acquisition of Getir’s online food and grocery delivery businesses^[8]. The competitive pressure on which the removal rested is therefore now exercised by a single group, which lends the two-year review added significance.

6. Conclusion

The Decision addresses a question Turkish practice had left open, namely how binding commitments come to an end. First, a provision drafted for reopening investigations has been used to release an undertaking from commitments it had performed for years, an avenue worth considering where market conditions have moved on. The second is the distinction between the commitments themselves. Those resting solely on dominance fell away with it, whereas the parity commitment, which the Board may examine under Article 4 as well as Article 6 and assess against the spread of MFC clauses across the market, did not. The two-year review is a middle course between removal and indefinite continuation, and the dissent shows the matter is not settled. Read with the Board’s recent treatment of de facto parity on marketplaces^[9], the Decision confirms that price parity, contractual or algorithmic, remains central to platform enforcement in Türkiye.

[1] Decision of the Board dated 27.11.2025 and numbered 25-44/1086-615.

[2] Decision of the Board dated 28.01.2021 and numbered 21-05/64-28.

[3] Decisions dated 07.07.2022, No. 22-32/498-200 and 23.02.2023, No. 23-10/170-53 (Şişecam), revising the commitments made binding by decision dated 21.10.2021, No. 21-51/712-354. See the Decision, paras. 32-35.

[4] Decision dated 25.11.2021, No. 21-57/799-395, extending the behavioural commitments accepted by decision dated 01.10.2018, No. 18-36/585-286 (Essilor/Luxottica). See the Decision, paras. 30-31.

[5] Decision of the Board dated 22.05.2025 and numbered 25-20/488-228.

[6] Decisions dated 18.05.2022, No. 22-23/364-154 (Trendyol GO) and 15.09.2022, No. 22-42/606-254 (Getir Yemek). See the Decision, para. 108.

[7] Decision of the Board dated 15.05.2025 and numbered 25-19/451-213 (Uber/Trendyol GO).

[8] Turkish Competition Authority, press release of 19 June 2026: https://www.rekabet.gov.tr/en/Guncel/acquisition-of-some-business-lines-of-ge-5dcf42bb3d6bf11193eb0050568549fa, last date of access September 2, 2026.

[9] Decision of the Board dated 26.02.2026 and numbered 26-07/197-71 (Temu).

Originally published in Concurrences