Second-Stage Reform On The Turkish Merger Control Regime: From Communiqué To Guidelines

In February 2026 the Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) substantially overhauled Communiqué No. 2010/4 concerning mergers and acquisitions requiring the approval of the Competition Board, raising the turnover thresholds, redefining the concept of “transaction party”, recalibrating the technology-undertakings exception, and codifying coordination-risk review for full-function joint ventures¹. As we observed at the time, the Communiqué amendments left several practically significant points open, in particular how the new TRY 250 million (approx. USD 6,3 million and EUR 5,6 million²) Turkish-turnover threshold for technology undertakings would be calculated, how the local-nexus requirement of “established in Türkiye” would be interpreted, and how the codified coordination-risk analysis for joint ventures would be operationalised³.