Price-Fixing Cartels in Turkey

At the top of the non-exhaustive list of prohibited restrictive agreements under Article 4 of Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition (Law No. 4054), paragraph (a) prohibits price-fixing, stipulating that agreements fixing the purchase or sale price of goods or services, elements such as cost and profit which form the price, and any conditions of purchase or sale are illegal, which applies both for buying and selling prices. This provision reveals that price-fixing is strictly prohibited by law. Price-fixing is one of the most common forms of cartel agreements, and it is deemed to be one of the most serious violations of competition law, as price competition is one of the core pillars of competition. Price-fixing between competitors is identified as one of the primary agreements that distort competition under Article 4 of Law No. 4054 and is not eligible for any exemptions, nor can it benefit from the safe harbour of the de minimis principle.

Prices may be fixed by determining maximum or minimum prices. Therefore, aside from those agreements that directly fix prices, practices that induce price control mechanisms in an indirect manner may also fall under price-fixing prohibition and thereby constitute a competition law violation.

The Turkish Competition Board may also view the exchange of commercially sensitive information among competitors (such as pricing, sales terms, or market policies), which can be a restrictive agreement in and of itself, as a serious risk for facilitating price-fixing practices. By sharing future pricing intentions, discounts, or timing of price changes, companies reduce strategic uncertainty, enabling coordinated behaviour and undermining competition. Therefore, if the information exchange leads to collusion on future prices and the amount of supply, it would be considered as a cartel and prohibited under Law No. 4054. Similarly, information exchange that is used to monitor whether competitors comply with the cartel arrangement—in other words, those facilitating cartels—are also assessed as a part of the cartel arrangement.

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