Horizontal Agreements in Turkish Competition Law

Article 4 of Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition (Law No. 4054) aims to prohibit and illegalize the agreements and concerted practices, as well as the decisions of the associations of undertakings, which prevent, distort or restrict competition by object or by effect, directly or indirectly in a particular market for goods or services. Horizontal agreements are therefore regulated under Article 4 of Law No. 4054 and defined as agreements that are concluded between two or more undertakings (i.e., existing or potential competitors) operating at same levels of the production or distribution chain. Among horizontal agreements, cartels are considered by object restrictions and are classified as hardcore violations of competition law.

The secondary legislation that provides general guidance on “other horizontal agreements” is the Guidelines on Horizontal Cooperation Agreements (Guidelines) published in 2013, which set out the principles to be considered in the assessment of agreements between undertakings, decisions of associations of undertakings and concerted practices with the nature of horizontal cooperation, within the framework of Articles 4 and 5 of Law No. 4054. The Guidelines shed light on the competitive analysis with respect to (i) information exchanges; (ii) R&D agreements; (iii) joint production agreements; (iv) joint purchasing agreements; (v) commercialization agreements; and (vi) standardization agreements. Horizontal agreements may benefit from group exemption under applicable block exemption regulations or from individual exemption if they meet the conditions set out in Article 5 of Law No. 4054.

For more information on horizontal agreements in Turkey, please feel free to reach out to ELIG Gurkaynak at +90 212 327 1724 or through gonenc.gurkaynak@elig.com.