Turkish Competition Authority Releases 2023 Annual Report

The annual report (Report) regarding the activities of the Turkish Competition Authority (Authority) for the year 2023 was published on the official website of the Authority. 

The Report examines the main elements of the Authority’s activities, strategic objectives, its mission and vision, its role in the national economy, and its working principles. The Report also includes detailed explanations of the annual activities of the Authority, examples of decisions, statistics, and international relations. The Report analyzes the strengths of the Authority and the aspects that need to be improved and focuses on strategic recommendations and measures to be taken for the future.

In 2023, the Board decided on a total of 370 files. It is observed that 145 of these files were related to competition infringements, 8 were related to exemption/negative clearance applications, and 217 were related to merger/acquisition/joint venture/privatization transactions. An increase in the number of competition infringement cases compared to the previous year was also noted.

In 2023, the sectors most subject to competition infringement investigations were deemed as the food industry, the machinery industry, and the health services sector, which collectively account for 75% of all competition infringement files.

In 2023, approximately 48% of the competition infringements in 2023 were examined ex officio by the Authority. A review of the competition infringements indicates that 121 are associated with violations of Article 4, 18 are related to violations of Article 6, and 6 are associated with violations of Articles 4 and 6 of Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition (Law No 4054). Of the 127 cases involving violations of Article 4 of Law No. 4054, 55 cases were identified as horizontal agreements, 69 cases were classified as vertical agreements, and three cases were characterized as both horizontal and vertical agreements.

In 2023, 145 decisions were finalized, of which 28 were preliminary investigations and 117 were concluded as a result of investigations. In 9 cases, the allegations made in the file were rejected, while in 12 cases, an administrative fine was imposed.

In 2023, only two out of the eight exemption/ negative clearance applications were concluded with a negative clearance decision, while four of six applications were concluded with individual exemptions. In this context, the Board granted conditional exemption to one application, while it decided to grant group exemption to another application.

In 2023, the Board approved 217 merger and acquisition applications. In comparison to the figures recorded in 2022, the number of merger and acquisition applications filed in 2023 has decreased by 12%. Of the 217 applications, approximately 64% related to acquisitions and 34% to the establishment of joint ventures. Furthermore, the Board approved two merger transactions and three privatization transactions in 2023. An analysis of the distribution of these applications by sector shows that the most common sectors subject to mergers and acquisitions consisted of information technology and platform services, chemicals and mining, health services, and automotive and vehicle services. In terms of merger and acquisition applications, the Board gave unconditional approval to 184 transactions and conditional approval to three transactions. A further 30 transactions were deemed to fall outside the scope of the review or below the established threshold.

In 2023, the Board imposed a total of 1,900,675,663 TRY in administrative fines on undertakings by the third paragraph of Article 16 of Law No. 4054. The total amount of these fines was 1,900,675,663 TRY, of which 1,799,182,282 TRY was due to breaches of Article 4 and 101,493,381 TRY was due to violations of Article 6 of Law No. 4054. In addition, a total of 267,887,916 TRY administrative fines were imposed for preventing on-site inspections. In 2023, the food industry sector (698.8 million TRY), machinery industry (689.7 million TRY), and other sectors (185.5 million TRY) accounted for approximately 83% of the total fines imposed for competition infringements. 

In the year 2023, a total of 73 lawsuits were concluded against the Board’s decisions on matters about professional conduct. The majority of these lawsuits (77%) were concluded in favor of the Authority. As of the end of 2023, sector reviews for online advertising, pharmaceuticals, fuel oil, container transport by regular lines and container port services, automotive, mobile ecosystem, earthquake zone, and red meat markets are ongoing. Furthermore, the Authority has included the Draft Directive on the Procedures and Principles Regarding On-Site Examinations among “Regulations Under Work in 2023”.