Wage-fixing Agreements in Turkey

Wage-fixing agreements are a form of buyer cartels, aiming to fix, directly or indirectly, wages and/or other financial rights to be provided to employees. Such anti-competitive agreements are considered as hard-core violations under Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition in Turkey.

Within the Turkish competition law framework, while a guideline concerning human resources-related competition risks is under development, no specific guidelines addressing competition in labour markets have yet been issued. However, case law establishes that competitive parameters related to the workforce, such as wages and salaries, fall under antitrust scrutiny.

In recent years, the Turkish Competition Board (Board) has scrutinized labour markets in various investigations. In its decisions and draft guidelines, the Board has confirmed that wage-fixing agreements are not different from price-fixing practices, with the distinction being that the former involves input markets, and the latter involves the output markets.

For more information on wage-fixing 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.