The Turkish Competition Authority imposes fines totalling €13M on a Big Tech company for excluding its competitors in shopping comparison services (Google)

On May 27, 2020, the Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) published its Google Shopping Decision (13.02.2020, 20-10/119-69) whereby it imposed an administrative fine amounting to approx. EUR 13 million on Google for hindering the activities of its competitors in the “shopping comparison services market” by way of abusing its dominant position in the “general search market”. In many aspects, Google Shopping follows the reasoning adopted by the European Commission in its own Google Shopping Investigation [1] and confirms the validity of the European Commission’s findings within the context of the Turkish markets by evaluating Turkey-specific market conditions and data. However, there are critical differences between the two decisions especially with respect to the way in which the