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COMP ET I T I ON LAW
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Commitments in Merger Transactions under Turkish
Competition Law
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Commitments are the remedies offered by the parties in order to
overcome any competition concerns arising out of a merger transaction.
For a long time, the Competition Board (hereinafter referred to as
the “CB”) has authorized the operation of concentrations normally not
acceptable under competition rules, subject to certain conditions that it
has imposed on the parties. More recently, its practice has changed to
the granting of merger clearances within the framework of commitments
proposed by the parties despite the absence of any special provision in the
competition legislation addressing this practice.
Legal Basis
Commitments are not expressly regulated by the Act on the Protection
of Competition No. 4054 (hereinafter referred to as the “Act”). The
only article referring to this system is Article 6 (3) of Communiqué No.
1997/1 on Mergers and Acquisitions Calling for the Authorization of the
Competition Board (hereinafter referred to as the “Communiqué”).
Types of Commitments
Although the CB gives place to both structural and behavioral
commitments within its decisions, it principally opts for structural remedies
as in European Competition Law. The Commission notice on remedies
acceptable under Council Regulation states that structural remedies are
preferred to behavioral remedies because they do not require medium or
long-term monitoring measures
1
. In line with this practice, two types of
structural remedies can especially be observed in the CB’s decisions:
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Article of January 2010 – Prof. Dr. H. Ercüment Erdem
1 OJEU, 2008/C – 267/01.