Legislative Proposal Amending the Law on the Protection of Competition No. 4054 was accepted at the General Assembly of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey
Legislative Proposal (“Legislative Proposal”) Amending the Law on the Protection of Competition numbered 4054 (“Law No. 4054”) was accepted at the General Assembly of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on 16.06.2020. The Legislative Proposal brought important changes to the Law No. 4054.
Within this scope, the changes below was made in the Law No.4054:
1) With regards to merger control filings, the 'significant impediment of effective competition' test is introduced instead of the dominance test.
The first paragraph of Article 7 of the Law No. 4054 is amended so that the effects of merger and acquisition transactions shall be subjected to significant impediment of effective competition test.
2) Competition Board may apply structural measures in its final decisions.
By changing the first paragraph of Article 9 of the Law No. 4054, it has been clarified that the Competition Board can apply structural measures in cases where behavioral measures fail.
3) Competition Board may review the undertakings’ books, data and documents kept in the physical and electronic media and in information systems, and make copies and printouts of them during on-site inspections.
With the amendment made in the subparagraph (a) of the first paragraph of Article 15 of the Law No. 4054, the scope of the Board's authority during on-site inspection is amended to include the books, data and documents of the undertakings which are kept physically, electronically and in undertakings’ information systems.
4) Decisions, concerted practices and decisions of associations of undertakings that do not exceed the thresholds such as market share and turnover that will be determined by the Competition Board may not be subject to investigation, except for per se and significant violations such as price fixing, territory or customer allocations and supply restrictions among competitors.
Relevant paragraph is added to Article 41 of the Law No. 4054.
5) In an ongoing preliminary investigation or investigation process, undertakings or associations of undertakings may submit commitments to eliminate the competitive concerns arising under Article 4 or 6 of the Law No. 4054.
In this context, the third paragraph of Article 43 of the Law No. 4054 has been amended and various paragraphs have been added.
6) After an investigation is initiated, the Competition Board may commence a reconciliation procedure upon the request of the concerned parties or ex officio.
Paragraphs regarding reconciliation process are added to Article 43 of the Law No. 4054. It is also regulated that parties may reconcile until the notification of investigation report. Within this scope, it is stated that administrative fines may be reduced up to 25% as a result of reconciliation.
The changes will enter into force upon publication.
You may access the full text of the Legislative Proposal’s Turkish version here.
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