NEWSLETTER-2019-metin

96 NEWSLETTER 2019 upon notifying this to the upper management, his own employment was terminated, (iii) during his term of employment, he was pres- sured by the sales manager to prevent competing products in stores, (iv) there were invoices which evidenced activities were conducted to prevent competitors from entering certain spots, (v) there was extreme pressure on the employees to push the competitors out of the market. The Board, once again, carefully examined the WhatsApp corre- spondences submitted to the complaint file, and stated that these files merely indicated that the activities therein were directed at competing with competitors, instead of excluding them. The Board also rejected the complaint and decided not to initiate a full-fledged investigation, since the documents obtained during the on-site investigation did not indicate or show that Frito Lay was in breach of Law No. 4054. In this decision, there is no information regarding the type of GSM line to which the WhatsApp messages were linked. Conclusion In light of these recent decisions, it should be taken into account that (i) the Authority experts can and have reviewed instant messaging applications used by employees, such as WhatsApp, during on-site in- spections as observed in the Ortodonti Decision, and (ii) the Board has evaluated and relied upon such correspondences as evidence during its decision-making process in its case files, such as Mey İçki and Frito Lay. Having said that, the scope and terms of obtaining these What- sApp correspondences still remains unclear in light of these decisions. For instance, these decisions do not specify if the Authority experts may only obtain WhatsApp messages linked to the GSM lines of the undertaking or may only obtain the ones connected to the computers of the employees. Having said that, the Authority experts may obtain the WhatsApp messages of an employee if they deem necessary and the Board is likely to examine and evaluate such as legitimate evidence. Therefore, considering the rapid and growing trends and inno- vation in technology, the Board is inclined to examine and evaluate digital platforms used by employees of investigated undertakings if it deems it necessary in order to determine and prevent any conduct that is in violation of Law No. 4054, in practice.