KPLAW

İş Kuleleri, Kule 3, Kat:2, 34330,
Levent / Istanbul, Turkey

CONTACT

T: +90 (212) 249 29 39
M: info@kplawtr.com

As is known, According to Article 4 of the Turkish Act No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition, Agreements between enterprises, concerted actions and such decisions and actions of associations of enterprises that aim to directly or indirectly prevent, distort or restrict competition in a particular good or service market, or that cause or may have such an effect, are considered unlawful and prohibited.

However, in accordance with the Block Exemption Communiqué No. 2002/2 on Vertical Agreements, vertical agreements that meet the conditions specified in the communiqué are exempted from this prohibition.

By publishing of "Communiqué no 2021/4" in the Official Gazette dated 5 November 2021 and numbered 31650, some changes were made in the Block Exemption Communiqué on Vertical Agreements:

  1. Pursuant to the pre-amendment regulation, in order to benefit from the block exemption pursuant to Article 2 of the Block Exemption Communiqué on Vertical Agreements, the supplier's market share in the relevant market in which the goods or services are the subjects of the vertical agreement must not exceed 40%. By the Communiqué numbered 2021/4, this threshold was reduced to 30% and the scope of the Block Exemption Communiqué on Vertical Agreements was narrowed.
     
  2. Within the scope of the amendment, the market share threshold, which the buyer must not exceed, has also been reduced to 30% in order to apply the exemption in vertical agreements that include the obligation to supply to a single buyer.
     
  3. In addition, the second paragraph of article 6/A regarding the calculation of 40% market share of the Block Exemption Communiqué on Vertical Agreements has been amended to comply with this amendment, and the 40% market share threshold in this article has also been reduced to 30%. The thresholds in clauses (c) and (d), stating that the exemption will continue for a certain period of time if the market share is subsequently exceeded, were reduced from 45% to 35%.
     
  4. Finally, with the Communiqué numbered 2021/4, enterprises that benefited from the block exemption in the past because their market share is below 40% but above 30%, will be excluded from the exemption with this amendment, were given six months to make their agreements in compliance with the conditions outlined in Article 5 of the Act No. 4054.