Turkish Competition Authority Published Guidelines On Examination Of Digital Data

The Law Amending the Law on Protection of Competition entered into force in June 2020. Following the amendment to Article 15/1(a) titled "On-Site Inspection", the Turkish Competition Authority (the "TCA") published the Guidelines on Examination of Digital Data on On-Site Inspections (the "Guidelines") last week. The Guidelines aim to determine the general principles to examine all kinds of data and documents kept in undertakings' electronic media and information systems at undertakings' premises or the TCA's headquarters.

The Guidelines introduce notable changes to the TCA's ongoing practice. Some of these significant changes are listed below:

• The TCA's authorised personnel may utilize forensics hardware and software to conduct qualified searches on undertakings' information systems such as servers, PCs/laptops and portable devices as well as storage tools such as USB sticks, external hard disks, back-up storages and cloud services.