A Liberal Approach Towards Leniency Applications In Turkey

So far, an efficient leniency practice has been a remarkable policy objective for the Turkish Competition Authority (TCA). In the Strategic Plan¹ issued in 2014, the TCA indicates that there are various obstacles towards the establishment of sufficient motive concerning leniency applications and detection of cartels. Regardless of the issues that were present at the time when the Strategic Plan was issued, the main objective of the TCA has always been to increase the efficiency of the leniency program by removing potential obstacles against it. The TCA took a major step towards one of the aforementioned obstacles nearly six months ago in its Syndicated Loan Decision,² by adopting an approach on consideration of anti-competitive information exchanges within the scope of a leniency application, which most would define as liberal. Before moving on, a brief insight on the leniency program in Turkey would be useful to understand the changes introduced by the Syndicated Loan