Responsible Party for Submitting the Filing under Turkish Merger Control Regime

Under the Turkish merger control regime, persons or undertakings that are parties to the transaction or their authorized representatives can make the filing, jointly or severally. In case of filing by one of the parties, the filing party should notify the other party of the fact of filing. In practice, the majority of notifications are “buyer only”.

Joint notifications are not uncommon, but “seller only” notifications are relatively rare. However, it should also be noted that, the acquirer(s) in case of an acquisition and both merging parties in case of a merger are also responsible to ensure that a filing has been made with respect to notifiable transactions.

Pursuant to Article 16 of Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition, if the parties to a notifiable transaction violate the suspension requirement, a turnover-based monetary fine (based on the local turnover generated in the financial year preceding the date of the fining decision at a rate of 0.1%) will be imposed on the incumbent firms (acquirer(s) in the case of an acquisition; both merging parties in the case of a merger).

For more information on responsible party for submitting the filing under Turkish merger control regime, please feel free to reach out to ELIG Gurkaynak at +90 212 327 1724 or through gonenc.gurkaynak@elig.com.