Competition law practice celebrating its 21st year in Turkey while leaving the 2018 behind. The year 2018 was rather a colourful year for Turkish competition law practice, with Turkish Competition Authority (TCA) directing its focus more and more on digital platforms, and evolving its policies towards to protection of competition. We believe there is a great value in analysing the year 2018, in order to develop an outlook for 2019 and years to come in a dynamic and fast-changing field, competition law. For that purposes, the BASEAK Competition, Public Policy and Regulation Team came up with Antitrust Review 2018 Turkey report, aiming to examine competition law practice in 2018 divided into six sections: competition advocacy, merger control, unilateral conduct, cartels, vertical relations, and agency effectiveness.
Competition advocacy section covered the effects of new Turkish Presidential System to the formation of the Turkish Competition Board, along with highlighting the new Guidelines on Vertical Agreements. Under the competition advocacy, the report also presented thoughts on TCA's approach to Big Data, and its close relation with competition. Merger control section started with the key numbers and carried on with the recent developments regarding gun-jumping and the importance of providing correct information to the TCA in merger filings. The TCA's recent investigations scrutinizing electricity sector have been evaluated under unilateral conduct section of the report, followed by one of a kind Sahibinden decision concerning innovative markets and excessive pricing. The year 2018 was a stagnant year for cartel investigations in Turkey, still, the report detailed the TCA decisions that are worth examining. Under the vertical relations section, MFC clauses, investigations on RPM and recognition of retail minus were some of the topics that the report shed light on. Last but not least, agency effectiveness section focused on the TCA's new approach to leniency applications, and the ongoing discussions on attorney client privilege.
You can access the report from here.
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