The preliminary investigation initiated by the Turkish Competition Authority upon the allegations stating that DSM Grup Danışmanlık İletişim ve Satış Ticaret A.Ş. (“Trendyol”) abused its dominant position in the market for the online intermediary platform services for the sale of second-hand products through exclusive conducts by favoring its own service DOLAP, which provides intermediary services for the online sale of the second-hand products, and preventing the transfer of the data used by the sellers in DOLAP service to the rival platforms. The Turkish Competition Board decided to open an investigation against Trendyol with its decision dated 13 June 2022 and numbered 22-24/385-M.
As is known, priorly another investigation has been opened against Trendyol with the allegations that it intervened in listing algorithms in a way favoring its own brands like TrendyolMilla, TrendyolMan and TrendyolKids against the products of third-party sellers, used the data it obtained through its marketplace activities for the development of marketing strategies of its own brands and made discriminations among the sellers making sales on the marketplace through interventions to the algorithms.
Within this framework, we see that investigations in the sector have increased after the publishing of sector reports of the Turkish Competition Authority regarding e-marketplaces and investigated topics have varied. We are looking forward to seeing the reflections of the e-commerce regulations, which are expected to come into effect in the near future and which are stated to bring behavioral obligations and restrictions to e-marketplace platforms.