Regulation of Digital Markets from Competition Policy Perspective: E-Commerce Law and Draft Amendment of Turkish Competition Act

Prof. Dr. Kerem Cem Sanlı* & Att. Dr. Cihan Doğan**

The increased importance of digital platforms for society and the ability of large digital platforms to cause considerable harm to consumers and businesses, thereby harm innovation, put pressure on the lawmakers to regulate the competition problems associated with digital markets. In fact, draft bills for regulating the digital markets are prepared under certain jurisdictions and some of these bills entered into force recently. Turkey also followed this trend and prepared two different regulations: E-commerce Law which is enacted in 2022 and Draft Bill to Amend the Competition Act. The book on which this blog post is based consists of three main parts. Under the first part, the book evaluates the policy justification for regulating digital platforms from competition law and economics perspective and reviews the reports prepared on this subject under different jurisdictions together with the reports prepared by Turkish Competition Authority. Under this part the laws and bills prepared under different jurisdictions including European Union, United Kingdom and Germany has also been evaluated. Under second part, the book delves into the details of the amendment made to the E-commerce Law. In this regard, basic concepts, and subjects of E-commerce Law such as e-commerce intermediary service providers, e-commerce service providers and net transaction volume together with the rules addressing unfair commercial practices. Under the third section, the Book reviews the Draft Competition Act. In this regard, the book examines the prohibitions and responsibilities envisaged to be introduced within the scope of the Draft and compares these rules with the regulations under different jurisdictions, especially the DMA and the German Competition Law.

For the full text of this blog post in Turkish, please click here.

Key words: Digital Markets, Competition Law, Platforms, DMA, E-commerce Law

* Istanbul Bilgi University Law School

** CD LAW