Turkish Competition Authority (“Authority”) underlined the followings with its announcement (“Announcement”) dated 8 May 2020:
In parallel with the recent developments in the digital economy both globally and locally, a requirement has emerged for competition authorities to closely follow up the effects of multilateral platforms and algorithm usages on markets and consumers.
Considering the reach of the competitive violations based on big data and algorithms as well as the difficulty in detection, customary practices and approaches seem to remain incapable of overcoming the problems to arise in this area
Within this scope, closely following up the potential competitive violations that such platforms may cause and the digital economy itself, the Authority has taken a proactive maneuver, with the Competition Board’s (the “Board”) decision dated 7 May 2020 numbered 20-23/307. Consequently, following activities are included within the scope of the Department of Strategy Development’s tasks:
- Contributing to mergers/acquisitions, sector inquiries, investigations, and preliminary inquiries regarding digital economy made under the body of Supervision and Enforcement Departments.
- Submitting opinions to the Board about investigations regarding digital economy, where necessary.
- Providing professional personnel support to competition inquiries regarding digital economy made by Supervision and Enforcement Departments, where necessary.
- Carrying out activities for training and informing the professional personnel regarding digital economy issues.
- Sharing knowledge and experience with international institutions and other competition authorities, taking transnational effects of digital economy and multilateral platforms into account.
- Carrying out training activities at national and international levels in order to draw attention to the problems in this area in markets, as well as ensuring that these problems are handled under the scope of competition infringements.
- Creating awareness about the effects of digital economy and algorithms on markets and consumers, contributing to the development of public policies by decision-makers in those areas by communicating with relevant ministries, institutions, and authorities.
Please see this link for the full text of the Announcement.
