Turkey: Antitrust/Competition Law

Turkey’s competition regime applies to domestic conduct and to foreign transactions or practices capable of producing effects in Turkish markets. For international businesses, the principal exposure points are merger notification, pre-closing coordination, conduct by firms with market power, exchanges of competitively sensitive information and cartel enforcement. The 2026 amendments to the Turkish merger-control framework materially raise the general turnover thresholds while preserving a lower, specially tailored test for qualifying technology undertakings established in Türkiye.

This article examines the legal structure and termination of exclusive distribution relationships affecting the Turkish market. It considers contractual classification, territorial protection, resale pricing, non-compete obligations, competition compliance, goodwill indemnity, customer information, intellectual property and dispute resolution.

Following a sector inquiry launched in December 2021 to detect structural competition concerns in the pharmaceutical sector and offer competitive solutions, the Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) published its Pharmaceutical Sector Inquiry Preliminary Report on 10 August 2026, opening it for public consultation. The report examines the overall outlook of the sector together with quantitative and statistical data, summarises the TCA's enforcement activities in the sector over the past ten years, and assesses the competitive structure across the full supply chain: production, market entry, and distribution.