Reporting competition violations to be rewarded

ANKARA

The Competition Authority’s strategic plan for the next five years highlights that detecting large anticompetitive cartels and monopolies has become increasingly challenging due to technological advancements.

"The advantages offered to companies by technological developments in terms of concealing evidence cause some difficulties in obtaining evidence in examinations, research and investigations of anticompetitive activities," the plan noted.

New ways, especially technological solutions, should be found to uncover cartels and incentive practices such as increased economic analysis of the market, changes to increase applications to the leniency program and financial rewards for real people who report cartels can be implemented, it suggested.

According to the plan, artificial intelligence applications and software can be used to detect competition violations in a timely manner, and in this way, practices that may distort competition in markets can be detected through algorithms.

"An economic structure in which economic and financial power is concentrated in the hands of a small number of individuals and companies and dominated by monopolies and cartels is undoubtedly the most important obstacle to social welfare,” Competition Authority head Birol Küle said.

“For this reason, we carry out our activities always aware of the heavy but precious responsibility that our basic mission imposes on us to develop and protect an economic structure in which there are companies that compete, invest in human resources, productivity and technology, in which entrepreneurial freedom is protected and in which our citizens benefit from price and quality competition,” he added.

“It is on the basis of this fundamental mission that we have drawn up our five-year strategic plan, our roadmap, which sets out the basic framework for our activities.”