The Board Published Its Decision on "the Standardized and Binding Framework Agreement Published by the Banks Association of Turkey"

The Board published its reasoned decision concerning the request for negative clearance for the "Standardized and Binding Framework Agreement" ("SBFA"), published by the Banks Association of Turkey ("BAT"). The Board refused to grant negative clearance to the SBFA, as it was found to include anti-competitive restrictions within the meaning of Article 4 of Law No. 4054. The Board did not grant an individual exemption to the SBFA either, as it did not fulfill the cumulative conditions for individual exemption, as set forth in Article 5 of Law No. 4054^[1].

BAT applied for negative clearance for the SBFA, which would be put into mandatory use by each member bank of BAT for providing individual banking services to their customers. BAT's application focused on the following arguments: Firstly, BAT argued that existing legislations already regulated the types of banking services included in the current banking services agreements ("BSAs"). Thus, by excluding the parts