Greetings from the first 2-min Recap of the year! In January, the Turkish Competition Board (the "Board") approved 26 merger control filings and published four reasoned decisions. The Board started the year off with a landmark decision, where it addressed hub-and-spoke cartels in the FMCG market.
Hub & Spoke Cartels: A Landmark decision of the Board on supermarkets
Price increases in the FMCG market triggered the Board to dig deep and investigate 29 undertakings and an association of undertakings regarding their pricing behaviour. As a result of the investigation, the Board imposed a record fine on supermarkets A101, BIM, Carrefoursa, Migros and Sok, as well as on their common supplier, Savola, a cooking oil producer, for violating competition law through a hub-and-spoke cartel. For detailed information, please see our article here.
This decision marks the first decision in Turkey where the scope of hub-and-spoke arrangements and the standard of proof are set out with comprehensive examples. The Board imposed a total administrative monetary fine of approximately EUR 176 million on the aforementioned five undertakings as a result of their behaviour with respect to the coordination of prices. The common supplier, Savola, was also found equally liable and an administrative monetary fine of EUR 1.48 million was imposed on Savola for acting as the "hub" in the hub-and spoke cartel. Additionally, the Board imposed an administrative monetary fine of approximately EUR 740,000 on Savola based on the grounds that it violated Turkish Competition Law by determining the resale prices of undertakings operating at the retail level.
2021 Merger and Acquisition Outlook Report is now published
In January the Competition Authority published its 2021 Merger and Acquisition Outlook Report. The following are highlights from the report, which includes the statistics of mergers, acquisitions and privatisation transactions reviewed by the Competition Board in 2021:
In 2021, the Board examined a total of 309 mergers, acquisitions and privatisation transactions.
40 investigations have been completed. This number has drawn attention, as it is exactly twice the average of the last five years.
74 competition violation decisions were made. Of these decisions, 44 resulted in refusal, 5 with commitments, and 25 with penalties being imposed.
In addition to the commitment mechanism, the settlement mechanism, which is another new mechanism, was implemented in three decisions in 2021.
The total amount of administrative monetary fines imposed in 2021 was approximately EUR 290,377,780—a record amount in the Board's 23-year history.
BeIN Turkey (Digiturk) fined over restriction of passive sales
The Board imposed a fine of approx. EUR 0,5 million on BeIN Turkey (Digiturk), a pay-TV platform that holds football broadcasting rights, for restricting the inter-brand competition between its dealers. The Board's findings include:
Digiturk held the dominant position in the market for paid television broadcasting of Turkish Super League and First League competitions.
Digiturk violated Turkish Competition Law in the 2018–2019 and 2019–2020 seasons by prohibiting its dealers, from making passive sales outside their exclusive regions.
The Board did not find an anti-competitive agreement between the dealers and did not impose any fines on the dealers.
The Board also ordered Digiturk to include a provision in its dealership contracts that clearly states that passive sales are not prohibited within one month from the notification of the reasoned decision.
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