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COMP ET I T I ON LAW
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Conclusion
The Turkish merger control regime contains deficiencies both in
legislation and in practice. These deficiencies result from the absence
of special provisions in the competition legislation and from the CB’s
incomplete decisions.
In order to fill the gap in the legislation, the commitments and
conditional authorization have been included in the Draft Law Amending
the Act on the Protection of Competition. However, this provision only
provides a general outline without providing details. Thus, a communiqué
including all the steps from the submission until the implementation of the
commitments will be issued in order to fill in the missing information.
The Communiqué to be issued will necessarily include the following
points:
•
Purpose and efficiency of the commitments:
The elimination of
all competition concerns in the relevant market represents the main
reason for the submission of commitments. Thus, the parties must
clearly demonstrate that the submitted commitments serve that
purpose.
•
Submission of commitments by the parties:
If the CB raises
competition concerns in the relevant market, only the parties are
entitled to submit commitments. In case the parties refrain from
submitting commitments or if the submitted commitments do not
eliminate the detected competition concerns, the CB, in lieu of
submitting commitments itself, will not authorize the operation of
a concentration.
•
Types of commitments:
Behavioral and structural commitments
to be submitted must be clearly indicated and among structural
commitments the following are to be provided in detail:
-
The determination of a suitable purchaser including its
characteristics and its power to maintain competition at the same
level as the acquired undertaking.
-
Characteristics of the business to be divested: any pecuniary or
non-pecuniary assets subject to divestment are to be explained
in detail.