Turkish Competition Board Rules On Scope Of Attorney Client Privilege For Dawn Raids

The Turkish Competition Board ("Board") has ruled to return documents obtained via a dawn raid on the basis that the documents are protected by attorney-client privilege (Decision Number 15-42/690-259, 2 December 2015). The Board ruled that the privilege includes correspondence between outside counsel and clients, which do not have employer-employee relationship. However, correspondence which has no direct relation to the right of defense and which helps or covers a violation is not included, even if it is related to a pre-investigation, investigation or examination.

The Board outlined the framework for attorney-client privilege in an earlier decision which established a precedent for the Board's future analysis of the privilege, in line with European competition laws (Decision Number 09-16/374-88, 20 April 2004).