ADMINISTRATIVE COURT CANCELLED THE TURKISH COMPETITION AUTHORITY’S DECISION AGAINST SAHIBINDEN.COM

20/02/2020

Ankara 6th Administrative Court annulled TCA decision where sahibinden.com was fined for 11 million TL on the grounds that it abused its dominant position by applying excessive prices.

Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) fined the undertaking on the grounds that; the “vehicle and real estate sales-rental markets”, which are defined as the relevant product markets in the case, are not capable of correcting themselves in the short and medium term due to imperfect competition and market entry barriers to market entry. TCA had determined that competitors are not able to create competitive pressure on sahibinden.com and high prices imposed by the undertaking cannot exist in a competitive market and cannot be explained by cost increase.

Sahibinden.com’s filed the following arguments to the court:

• Current TCA decision contradicts with the previous 2015 decision,
• The differences between competing product qualities are disregarded in the decision.
• Prices are real average unit prices and the price increase solely does not constitute a violation.
• It is not sufficient for a company to be in a dominant position for the detection of violation.
• TCA did not met all requirements of administrative procedure.

Based on these arguments, Ankara 6th Administrative Court's stated that excessive pricing is an exceptional violation that may be possible if the competition and consumer welfare is clearly damaged without hesitation. The Court annulled the TCA decision on the grounds that the facts, claims and determinations provided by TCA do not meet the requirements for excessive pricing and the Authority’s decision is reached based on observation rather than concrete evidence.

(“Ankara 6^th Administrative Court Decision 18/12/2019 - 2019/2625”)