NEWSLETTER-2017

127 COMPETITION LAW or indirectly in a particular market for goods or services are illegal and prohibited.” Booking.com could not benefit from the block exemption de- fined in Block Exemption Communique numbered 2002/2 3 due to the fact that its’ market share exceeds the 40% amount in the relevant market in which it provides services, and that are the subject of the vertical agreement. Furthermore, Booking.com could not benefit from the individual exemption, since it did not fulfill the conditions determined in Article 5 of the Competition Act. Therefore, upon its evaluation, the Board decided that Booking.com has violated Article 4 of the Competition Act, and imposed an administrative fine. It is also worth mentioning that the foreign authorities generally choose not to impose administrative fines in similar cases. Separately, Bookingdot- com Destek Hizmetleri Limited Liability Company did not receive an administrative monetary penalty as it has no decisive influence on the implementations that are subject to the investigation. MFN Clauses The recent activities of the antitrust authorities in the United States, the EU and Turkey indicate that they have a growing interest in the “most favored nation clause,” “most favored customer clause,” and “price parity clause” implementations (“MFN”). By virtue of an MFN clause, the seller in principle commits not to offer more favorable prices to other customers. 4 Therefore, the buyer benefiting from the MFN clause guarantees that the seller offers the favorable prices or sales conditions that it provides to other customers, as well as to itself. The common application of the MFN clause is as follows: The seller undertakes that if it offers more favorable condi- tions to a buyer other than the one benefiting from the MFN clause, it will also offer the favorable conditions to the MFN customer 5 . In the 3 Block Exemption Communiqué on Vertical Agreements, Amended by the Com- petition Board Communiqué, No. 2003/3 and 2007/2, Numbered 2002/2. 4 Vandenborre I., Frese, M. J, “Most Favored Nation Clauses Revisited”, European Competition Law Review, 2014, No:12, p. 558-593. 5 Baker, Jonathan B. and Chevalier, Judith A., “The Competitive Consequences of Most-Favored-Nation Provisions” (2013), Articles in Law Reviews & Other