R&D Agreements in Turkish Competition Law

Pursuant to the definition of research and development (R&D) agreements under Article 4 of the Block Exemption Communiqué No. 2016/5 on Research and Development Agreements (Communiqué No. 2016/5), agreements for the purposes of paid R&D of products, or technologies subject to the agreement and joint exploitation from the results of the R&D, are deemed to be R&D agreements. On the other hand, agreements that have another basic goal such as joint production, resale and transfer of intellectual rights, and which involve merely subsidiary provisions concerning joint R&D, fall outside the scope of the block exemption provided by Communiqué No. 2016/5. The Guidelines on Horizontal Cooperation Agreements stipulates that there are various scopes of R&D agreements, such as (i) outsourcing R&D activities to third parties; (ii) joint improvement of existing technologies; and (iii) cooperation concerning the research, development and marketing of completely new products.

R&D agreements between competitors can benefit from block exemption under Communiqué No. 2016/5, provided that the combined market share of the parties does not exceed 40% in the relevant market and the agreements do not include hard-core restrictions. However, the R&D agreements including an exclusive distribution mechanism are an exception to this and require a market share threshold of 20%. Additionally, Article 7(3) of Communiqué No. 2016/5 clearly states that R&D agreements between undertakings that are not competitors in the relevant market are not subject to the threshold conditions specified above (i.e., in Article 7).

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