Quarterly Competition Law Bulletin

1. Background

With its decision dated 8 December 2022 and numbered 22-54/833-343, the Turkish Competition Authority ("TCA") rendered a decision regarding the banking sector. The decision concerns the preliminary investigation ("Pre-Investigation") on whether the relevant practice of a bank violated Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition ("Law No. 4054").

The Pre-Investigation was initiated following a complaint alleging that certain banks active in debit and credit card issuance in Türkiye violated Law No. 4054 by preventing payment institutions from accessing their POS services and engaging in various exclusionary practices. In this context, the TCA assessed whether the relevant bank violated Art. 4 of Law No. 4054 by imposing customer restriction on payment institutions.