NEWSLETTER-2019-metin

119 COMPETITION LAW an investigation against Sahibinden.com. However, at this point, it is evident that some of the evaluations of the Competition Board have been altered. Definition of the Relevant Market In the Decision, the relevant product market was defined as “ the market for online platform services for selling vehicles and online platform services for renting/selling real estate; ” whereas, the rel- evant geographical market was defined as “ Turkey. ” Since the relevant product market definition is critical for the determination of dominant position, we are of the opinion that the following assessments in the Decision are noteworthy: • The market in which Sahibinden.com operates is broadly defined as a multilateral platform services market. • The value of a platform is determined by the participation of the decision-making unit groups that wish to benefit from the commercial interaction opportunities offered by the plat- form (networking effects). As more members of economic decision-making groups join the platform, the value of the platform increases, thus increasing the price-setting power of the platform service provider. • While there are exceptions, in general, multilateral platforms offer free or low-cost (below-marginal-cost) services to end- users, while serving at relatively high prices (over-marginal- cost) to decision-making units that provide goods and/or ser- vices to final consumers through the platform. Sahibinden. com also implements this pricing strategy. • The pricing strategy enables cross-platform competition by increasing the possibility of the end-users (those who tar- get to acquire the service provided through the platform) to change the platform they use, or to use multiple platforms at the same time. • A platform becomes dominant in the relevant market mainly due to positive network externality, horizontal and vertical