Competition

Competition

The Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) is one of the most active competition authorities in the EMEA region. The TCA vigorously investigates anticompetitive agreements and abuses of dominance, and also decides whether or not to clear mergers. There is also a pending legislative effort to include a new ex ante competition tool which, similar to Digital Markets Act in the EU, aims to address competition concerns arising from the economic power of gate keepers in the digital economy.
 
Our competition team led by Dr. Kadir Baş is fully equipped with necessary theoretical knowledge and practical experience to assist our local or foreign clients in all areas of competition law as well as related sectorial regulation.  

Antitrust Investigations 

In recent years, there has been a steady increase in the number of antitrust investigations (or preliminary inquiries) initiated by the TCA. Parallel to this increase, companies more frequently face down raids conducted by the TCA. Our competition team provides timely and efficient legal assistance to our clients during such down raids.  

We represent and defend clients with utmost care in every stage of antitrust proceedings before the TCA. Considering the best interests of clients, we also advise and assist them about whether to make a leniency application or invoke alternative procedures such as commitment decision or settlement mechanisms. 

We also help clients to forward their complaints to the TCA against competition infringements committed by third parties, and represent them in antitrust proceedings initiated to such third-parties. 

Exemption Assessment 

We offer clients competition counseling which, among other, include the assessment of the client’s agreements in terms of their compliance with articles 4 and 5 of the Act on the Protection of Competition (“APC”), which mainly mirrors Article 101.1 and 3 of TFEU. It is possible to apply to the TCA in order to get an exemption decision under article 5 APC. We handle all substantive and procedural matters relating to individual exemption applications for our clients. 

Merger Control 

Our competition team has deep expertise in all procedural and substantive aspects of merger control. In practice, it can be very challenging for foreign or local clients to determine whether their planned transaction is notifiable particularly because the notification thresholds in Türkiye has been significantly eased for acquisitions of tech entities whose definition is not very clear. We advise clients on whether their transaction is notifiable, and handle all merger control proceedings before the TCA courts for them. 

Clients also choose us to assist them when they wish to be involved as a third party (competitor, supplier/buyer) in merger control procedures courts relating to transactions to which they are not party.  

Competition Litigation  

In Türkiye, there is a rise in follow-on damages claims relating to competition infringements, particularly abuses of dominance. The plaintiff may claim triple damages for competition law violations under Turkish law. Therefore, antitrust litigation poses a high risk or provides important revenue opportunity for companies, depending on which side they are. Our competition team, supported by the expertise of our litigation team, advises and represents both claimant and defendant companies in antitrust litigations before civil courts. 

We also handle appeal proceedings before administrative courts against all sorts of decisions of the TCA for clients.  

Antirust Compliance  

We help clients to build a strong and efficient program for ensuring their compliance with competition law and related sectoral regulations. We closely work with clients to create tailored-made compliance programs by giving care to their way of operation, culture and needs. In this regard, we provide assistance for the drafting of competition compliance policy and related guidelines. With coordination with clients, we also conduct mock down raids at their premises and organize training courses workshops with their directors/employees, in order to make clients fully prepared for a real dawn raid and minimize the risk of potential antitrust investigations/fines. 

Digital Sector-Specific Regulations 

E-Commerce Law, amended by Law No: 7416, sets out extensive obligations for online platforms and e-commerce service providers. Some of those obligations aim to eliminate the contractual imbalance between online platforms and e-commerce service providers and thus prohibit online platforms from engaging in certain unfair commercial practices. Another group of obligations aims to eliminate monopolization concerns in the e-commerce sector. Our competition team also advises and assists clients in the digital sector on and for all aspects of compliance with E-Commerce Law and related regulations as well as the ex-ante obligations planned to be added to APC for gate keepers.