The Turkish Competition Authority’s Google Shopping Decision: Does It Hit The Bull’s Eye?

Abstract

Google, like other tech giants, has been under close scrutiny by competition authorities in many jurisdictions. Turkey is one of those jurisdictions in which recently Google has received unfavourable outcomes. First, in November 2018, the Turkish Competition Authority (Rekabet Kurulu) (‘TCA’) fined Google1 approximately €17 million on the ground that it abused its dominant position in the market for licensed mobile operating systems by imposing contractual restrictions on mobile device manufacturers to strengthen the position of Google search and Google WebView in Android mobile devices.2 It imposed a set of remedies requiring Google to end its practices granting such preferential treatment to Google search and Google WebView.3 Although the aforementioned decision of the TCA was influenced by the European Commission’s (‘Commission’) decision in Google Android,4 its findings and remedies did not completely coincide with those of the latter. Due to its disagreement with the TCA on the implementation of the imposed remedies, Google announced that it would cease to offer its Android services to devices that would be sold to the Turkish market.5 This tension between the TCA and Google soon ended, as the TCA accepted the new package of commitments submitted by Google.6