Balcıoğlu Selçuk Akman Keki successfully assisted the leading foreign audit, financial advisory and tax consultancy firm in a major project titled “Technical Assistance for the Prevention of Anti-competitive Behaviors in the Electronic Communications Sector”.

The purpose of the project is to review the regulatory framework in place in Turkey for monitoring and addressing anti-competitive behavior in the electronic communications sector.

The beneficiary organizations are the Information and Communication Technology Authority (“BTK”) and the Competition Authority (“CA”) of the Republic of Turkey. The contracting authority is the Central Finance & Contracts Unit (“CFCU”) of the Prime Ministry Undersecretariat of Treasury.

The one-year Project, which was co-financed by the European Union and the Republic of Turkey, is made up three tasks:

Task A – Improving the expertise and knowledge in preventing anti-competitive behaviors with ex ante regulatory measures: This task focuses on preventing anti-competitive pricing conduct of operators with Significant Market Power through ex ante remedies.

Task B – Improving the expertise and knowledge of the Competition Authority and BTK regarding their legal duties in addressing anti-competitive behaviors reactively: This task concentrates on addressing anti-competitive pricing conduct of dominant operators through ex post remedies. It is thus complementary to Task A.

Task C – Improving the efficiency on dealing with non-price related anti-competitive behaviors and evaluating the level of competition in general: This task addresses all anti-competitive non-pricing behavior through ex ante and/or post remedies and is thus complementary to Task A and B. Task C additionally covers competition assessment methodologies.

Balcıoğlu Selçuk Akman Keki, as sub-contractor to the Firm, provided legal advice on regulatory issues related to the prevention of anti-competitive behavior. We mainly focused on the Turkish legislative and judiciary framework on the use of ex-post and ex-ante tools to deal with competitive problems in electronic communications markets. During the project, we have issued numerous comprehensive reports to explain the caveats in Turkish regulatory framework and to show the ways to improve it.

Şahin Ardıyok, the key legal expert in the Project and the Head of BASEAK's Competition and Antitrust practice, worked with associate Barış Yüksel.

About Balcıoğlu Selçuk Ardıyok Keki

Balcıoğlu Selçuk Ardıyok Keki Attorney Partnership is an Istanbul-based full service law firm with a team of 130+ lawyers and economists. Our practice focuses on a wide range of areas including real estate, corporate, mergers and acquisitions, banking, project finance, capital markets, competition and anti-trust, employment, litigation and arbitration, telecommunication, regulatory and public law and intellectual property. We represent and advise Turkish and multinational clients, including Fortune 500 companies, in the banking and finance, private equity, real estate, manufacturing, hospitality and leisure, retail, automotive, energy, information technology, life sciences, luxury fashion and beauty, and media sectors.