A Less Stringent Approach To The Deletion Of Data Before Dawn Raids?

Introduction

The Turkish Competition Authority's most effective tool for obtaining evidence is dawn raids for hard and soft data. The Turkish Competition Board ("Board") is therefore intolerant of obstructions to dawn raids, such as deletion of data by the investigated company, with its decisions not considering whether deleted data was recovered or even relevant to the raid's purposes. This has been the case whether the company is an SME or a multinational.

In the recently published Koyuncu Elektronik decision,¹ a majority of the Board continued long-established practice – but with significant, and unusual, dissent.

Three Board members (one of whom is President) provided dissenting opinions, arguing there was no reason to impose a fine as the deleted data not related to the raid and, moreover, that it was recovered.