Cartel Facilitator in Turkish Competition Law

The definition of ‘cartel facilitator’ is provided under the Regulation on Active Cooperation for Detecting Cartels (Leniency Regulation). Article 3 of the Leniency Regulation defines “cartel facilitator” as Undertakings and associations of undertakings which mediate for organizing and/or maintaining a cartel, facilitate the organization and/or maintaining a cartel with their activities, without carrying out activities at the same level of production or distribution chain as the parties to the cartel.

The Leniency Regulation expanded the scope of full immunity to the parties to a hub-and-spoke cartel or other cartel facilitators, who are, in practice, held liable for administrative sanctions in the same way as the cartel parties do, by allowing them to also benefit from active cooperation and broadened the Turkish Competition Authority’s avenues for accepting leniency applications.

Within this scope, the leniency programme is available to cartel parties as well as the cartel facilitators. The Leniency Regulation foresees that a cartel party or cartel facilitator which submit the information and documents and meet the conditions mentioned below apply for leniency within a period of 3 months following the receipt of Investigation Notice. Moreover, the applicant acquiring additional information and documents after the initial application, can submit these materials before the conclusion of the second written defence period.

For more information on cartel facilitator in Turkish competition law, please feel free to reach out to ELIG Gurkaynak at +90 212 327 1724 or through gonenc.gurkaynak@elig.com.