On December 27, 2024, the Turkish Competition Authority (TCA) published the Regulation on Administrative Fines for Anticompetitive Agreements, Concerted Practices, and Abuse of Dominant Position (2024 Regulation) in the Official Gazette.
The 2024 Regulation repeals and replaces a 2009 regulation on the same topic.
In accordance with article 16 of the Law no. 4054 on the Protection of Competition (LPC)—Turkey’s main antitrust legislation and the statute that established the TCA—the TCA may impose administrative fines on companies and their directors and employees for engaging into anticompetitive conduct. Such conduct includes anticompetitive agreements, decisions, and concerted actions; abuse of a company’s dominant position in the relevant market; and anticompetitive mergers and acquisitions. (LPC art. 16/3.) The LPC authorizes the TCA to issue regulations to specify the factors that will be considered when imposing administrative fines, including aggravating and mitigating factors, and to lay out procedures for offending companies to cooperate with the TCA.
In its press release announcing the publication of the 2024 Regulation, the TCA explained that the updates to the policy reflect the TCA’s practices that have developed in the last 15 years, and that the update was particularly necessitated by “the increase in the market power of large technology undertakings controlling critical assets such as user data due to the expansion of their cross-border activities, the spread of competition violations to a wide economic area that [such increase in market power] causes, and the negative effects of violations related to algorithms and data monopolization on digital markets and consumer welfare.”
The 2024 Regulation abandons the 2009 regulation’s distinction between the maximum base fines imposed for cartel conduct and those for other anticompetitive conduct. Previously, administrative fines were calculated starting with the base fine. The base fine for cartel conduct was between 2% and 4% of the company’s gross annual income the year before the violation occurred, and for other anticompetitive conduct was between 0.5% and 3%. The TCA had authority to depart from the base fine based on aggravating or mitigating factors that were provided in the regulation. (2009 regulation art. 6.)
The 2024 Regulation gives the TCA the discretion to set the applicable base fine based on its assessment of “the gravity of the harm that has occurred or is likely to occur due to the violation and whether the nature of the violation is clear and/or severe.” (2024 Regulation art. 5/2.) The 2024 Regulation, like the previous regulation, limits the maximum final administrative fine to 10% of the offending company’s gross annual income in the year preceding the year in which the violation occurred (or that of the offending association of companies). This statutory maximum limit is set by the LPC. (LPC art. 16/3.)
The 2024 Regulation also revises the aggravating and mitigating factors that the TCA may apply in setting of the final fine. It grants the TCA greater flexibility by eliminating the minimum amount that aggravating factors may increase the base fine and the minimum and maximum amounts that mitigating factors may decrease the base fine.
The 2024 Regulation constitutes a part of the administrative sanctions’ framework within Turkish competition law. It is complemented by the 2021 Regulation on the Settlement Procedure Applicable in Investigations Concerning Anticompetitive Agreements, Concerted Practices, and Decisions and Abuse of Dominant Position, and the 2023 Regulation on Active Cooperation for the Detection of Cartels.
Prepared by Zeynep Timocin Cantekin, Legal Research Fellow, under the supervision of Hanibal Goitom, Chief, Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Division I
Law Library of Congress, January 23, 2025
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