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…
Dawn raids may become a nerve-racking experience for companies that are under scrutiny of competition authorities and their employees. During a dawn raid, which is performed without prior notice, employees of the relevant undertaking who lack proper training may act in a way that can expose their companies to monetary fine. Dawn raids are often…
With the developments in online services, our habits in everyday life has been changing rapidly. Nowadays, one can cater any of its needs via websites or simple smartphone apps instantly. And all these developments have also been reflected its effects on maybe one of our most common and frequent habit; grocery shopping. We experienced (and…
Competition law, at its core, is a case law based practice. The natural habitat of enforcement for competition rules is the consolidation of bilateral and multilateral commercial relationships that we came to know as the system of economy. In an effort to maximize the consumer welfare (and eventually the total welfare via innovation and creative…
Mergers and acquisitions are effective tools for boosting innovation and commercial advancement. With the rising globalism in the circulation of goods and services, undertakings are forced to seek mutually beneficial collaborations to refrain from being outmaneuvered by the creative destruction that defines the way of doing business in the modern day. Vertical integrations that may…
Introduction When competition law is considered, first issues that come to mind are anticompetitive agreements between competitors, abusive unilateral practices of dominant undertakings and mergers that restrict competition in relevant product or service markets. The foregoing practices are condemned as they lead to an increase in the end-user prices in the short or the long…
Introduction In May 2019, Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) has published two reasoned decisions, namely Bfit Decision[1] and Minikoli Decision[2], in which it assesses the resale price maintenance (“RPM”) activities of the concerned undertakings. These decisions bear significance since they represent the TCA’s unstable approach towards RPM activities. In the aforementioned cases, the TCA adopted an…
While the Article 4 of the Turkish Competition Act prohibits the anticompetitive agreements, concerted practices and decisions, Article 5 covers the exemption from this prohibition as in the 101(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (“TFEU”). According to the Article 5 of the Competition Act, Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) can grant…
In 2018 the Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) had issued three landmark decisions regarding the Turkish electricity sector. These decisions concern the largest incumbent companies operating providing electricity distribution and retail sale services in various regions of Turkey, namely; CK[1], Enerjisa[2] and Bereket[3]. In these three decisions, the TCA had imposed total fines amounting to TRY…
