Under The Microscope: How The Turkish Competition Authority Finds Out About Unnotified Transactions

Introduction

Similar to many other European jurisdictions, the Turkish merger control regime requires that mergers and acquisitions that exceed certain jurisdictional thresholds are notified. Failure to notify a notifiable transaction may not only result in administrative monetary fines but risks invalidity of the transaction itself under Article 7 of the Law. 4054 on Protection of Competition ("the Law No. 4054"). However, there is always a question of how a competition authority actually becomes aware of a transaction that was not notified. A recent interesting decision of Turkish Competition Board sheds light on this issue.

Competition Authority Investigation

The Turkish Competition Authority ("TCA") initiated a preliminary investigation after an anonymous complaint on August 2018 was sent to it regarding certain transactions that were entered into in the ready-mixed concrete market in the Turkish city of Yozgat in central Anatolia. Although the exact