Two-minute Recap of Recent Developments in Turkish Competition Law - January 2024

On 10 January 2024, the Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) announced that US tech conglomerate Meta failed to fulfil the compliance measures attached to its previous abuse of dominance decision.^[1] As a result, the Board decided to impose a daily administrative monetary fine on Meta amounting to approximately EUR 146,000. The fine applies retroactively from 12 December 2023 and will be assessed daily until Meta provides a final compliance remedy that the TCA deems sufficient to restore effective competition in the market. For more details on this case, please refer to our article here.

An interesting monetary fine for false and misleading information

During the investigation conducted to determine whether Sahibinden (the largest real-estate and car listing platform in Turkey) abused its dominant position by hindering data portability, the TCA case handlers determined that the undertaking had submitted false and misleading information. However, instead of imposing an administrative monetary fine for this error, the case handlers appear to have considered it under the defence of rights and simply relied on new data for their additional opinion. The fact that this inaccurate data was submitted in response to an officially served information request seems not to have affected the assessment.

Interestingly, what is understood from the decision is that Sahibinden insisted on relying on the inaccurate data that it had submitted during the entirety of the investigation phase, even after it was established by the case handlers that the data submitted was inaccurate. In the end however, due to Sahibinden relying again on the inaccurate data during the oral hearing, the case handlers asked the Board to impose an administrative monetary fine. The Board agreed and imposed a fine on Sahibinden.

Electrolux fined for resale price maintenance – A classic tale with a twist

On 26 January 2024, the Turkish Competition Board (the “Board”) announced the conclusion of its full-fledged investigation into whether Swedish home appliance maker Electrolux violated Turkish competition law by engaging in resale price maintenance (“RPM”). The Board imposed an administrative fine of approximately EUR 820,000 on Electrolux for RPM infringement. This is a classic tale and a frequent occurrence, as RPM fines are common under Turkish competition law. However, this time the Board opted to increase the monetary fine due to Electrolux “coercing other undertakings into violation”. We will have to wait until the Board publishes its reasoned decision to know why the Board considered that Electrolux coerced other undertakings into violation.

TCA publishes M&A transaction statistics for 2023

On 5 January 2024, the TCA published statistics on the mergers, acquisitions and privatisation transactions concluded by the Board in 2023. You can read our article on the report here.

Nestlé gets fined, while Danone gets away with exchanging competitively sensitive information

The Board announced the conclusion of a full-fledged investigation into whether multinational food processors Nestlé and Danone violated Turkish competition law by exchanging competitively sensitive information. The Board imposed an administrative fine of approximately EUR 7.8 million on Nestlé but decided not to impose an administrative fine on Danone due to insufficient evidence.

Previously, the Board closed the file on Turkish FMCG companies Eti and Horizon, which were party to the same investigation, with settlement and imposed a total fine of approximately EUR 2.7 million. In reaching its conclusion, the Board stated that Eti and Horizon were engaged in practices that would lessen uncertainty in the market.

Turkic States Competition Council is formed

On 23 January 2024, the TCA announced the formation of the Turkic States Competition Council consisting of Turkey, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Hungary, Turkmenistan and Northern Cyprus. It was previously announced that the Council members will engage in joint efforts to promote a culture of competition across the region.

Settlement for RPM and commitment to the rest

On 4 January 2024, the Board announced the conclusion of a full-fledged investigation into Aksaray, a manufacturer/supplier operating in the FMCG sector, and decided that the company infringed Turkish competition law by engaging in RPM, restricting the regions to which resellers can conduct sales, and imposing non-compete obligations.

The Board accepted the settlement for the RPM violation and imposed an administrative monetary fine of approximately EUR 60,000. Regarding the regional sales restrictions and non-compete obligations, the Board accepted commitments and closed the file without imposing monetary fines.

The TCA launches investigation against Çiçeksepeti to determine whether it abused its dominant position

On 30 January 2024, the Board announced that the launch of a full-fledged investigation to investigate whether flower seller Çiçeksepeti, which is dominant in the online flower delivery market in Turkey, abused its dominant position by closing its platform services to third parties and discriminating in favour of its own dealers.

1 The English version of the announcement can be reached via this link: https://www.rekabet.gov.tr/en/Guncel/the-announcement-of-the-board-decision-a-3e42b75bc1afee118ecc00505685da39