On 29th of July, Google announced[1] that starting from 10th of August, it will be removing shopping ads (or “the Shopping Unit” as referred by the TCA as well as by the EU Commission) from its search pages in Turkey. According to the tech giant, the decision was taken because of the uncertainties surrounding the…

Last month, a law package to tackle the social and economic challenges that coronavirus pandemic cause was introduced via the Act No. 7244 on Reducing the Effects of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak on Economic and Social Life and Amendments to Certain Acts (“Act No. 7244“)[1]. Among other regulatory and protectionist measures, the Act No….

Introduction The Ankara Regional Administrative Court’s 8th Administrative Chamber (“Regional Court”) recently annulled the decision of the Ankara 2nd Administrative Court (“Administrative Court”)[1], in which a lawsuit against the Turkish Competition Authority’s (“TCA”) Mey İçki-2 decision[2] was dismissed[3]. The Regional Court’s decision is of crucial importance in two ways: (i) first, as mentioned in our…

Anti-competitive practices in the labor markets have generally not been on the radar of the competition watchdogs. Given the increase in the number of cases dealing with the labor markets within the last five years, this appears to change. The Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) contributed to that shift by publishing on May 6, 2020 another…

The Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) on March 23, 2020 gave its heads up to undertakings that it was “closely following the price increases”, which it referred to as “opportunistic” during the pandemic[1]. As such, the TCA warned in its announcement that it will impose the highest fines allowed by the Turkish Competition Law on all…

Introduction In the previous days, the Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) resolved under its decision dated 26.03.2020 and numbered 20-16/234-M to open an investigation against the undertaking operating in the automotive sector in order to re-evaluate its decision dated 24.06.2009 and numbered 09-30/637-150 since it was annulled by the 13th Chamber of Council of States. Given…

In April 2020, The Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) initiated two separate preliminary inquiries in the protective face mask and retail sectors. These inquiries are a part of the TCA’s current patrol on anti-competitive activities in sectors that directly affect consumers during the Covid-19 outbreak. As a result of Covid-19 and its dire consequences, numerous industries…

Introduction While the world is dealing with novel coronavirus pandemic, many countries resorted to protectionist measures in order to preserve the quality of social life and stability of the economy from the effects caused by the outbreak. A package of measures to that end was introduced by the Turkish lawmakers via Act No. 7244 on…

The issue of the “appropriate claimant” or the capacity to sue always comes into question at the stage of the judicial review of the decisions of the competition authorities. It is not as easy as it may seem from the first glance, and the case law of the Administrative courts in Turkey is a proof…

On 07.11.2019, the Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) concluded its preliminary inquiry regarding Google’s[1] bidding system and decided not to initiate a full-fledged investigation. Said preliminary inquiry had been initiated upon a 28.02.2019 dated complaint made with confidentiality request claiming that: Google is in dominant position in search services, Google’s Shopping Unit and AdWords are crucial…