The Pulse — Edition 07: Competitive Edge: Legal Insights
March 2026 | Başaran Law Firm
Turkey's Labor Market Crackdown Expands: 26 Firms Under Investigation
The Turkish Competition Board launched a formal investigation on 29 January 2026 into 26 undertakings across banking, insurance, and IT for alleged no-poach agreements and the exchange of competitively sensitive information in the labour market — both of which constitute violations of Article 4 of Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition (the prohibition on anti-competitive agreements).
The respondents include 13 of Turkey's most prominent banks, among them Garanti, İşbank, Yapı Kredi, and HSBC, four insurance companies, and nine technology firms supplying fintech and banking software. Labour market enforcement, long a US and European priority, has now firmly arrived in Turkey. For HR departments and C-suites in the financial services and technology sectors, the message is direct: bilateral arrangements that restrict employee mobility, whether formal or informal, written or oral, now carry meaningful antitrust exposure. Compliance programs must extend beyond pricing and procurement to cover recruitment and workforce management.
TCA Turns to Private Schools: Tuition Fees and Tied Services in the Crosshairs
Also on 29 January 2026, the Turkish Competition Board opened a separate investigation into 19 private educational institutions for alleged collusion on tuition fee increases and the bundling of ancillary services — catering, textbooks, stationery, and uniforms — as mandatory purchases from designated suppliers.
The schools named include major chains such as Bahçeşehir Okulları, Uğur Okulları, Bilnet, TED Ankara Koleji, and Final Eğitim. The investigation targets potential violations of Article 4 of Law No. 4054, specifically price-fixing and tying arrangements. The TCA has shown a consistent pattern: once it enters a sector, it investigates it from every angle. For private education groups operating in Turkey, this signals that pricing decisions and supplier relationships for ancillary services require the same rigorous competition law review as commercial contracts.
Google Under the Microscope Again in Turkey
The Turkish Competition Board opened a fresh investigation into Google on 8 January 2026, this time targeting the contractual architecture that replaced the obligations imposed by the Board's landmark 2018 Android decision (case no. 18-33/555-273). The new inquiry examines four specific concerns: whether Google's Search Widget Placement Agreement (GSPA), framed as voluntary but financially incentivised, produces the same exclusionary effect as the prior mandatory placement requirement; whether Turkey-specific revenue-sharing arrangements (TRSA) entrench Google Search as the default across a broader range of services, including Chrome and Google Assistant; whether Google requires manufacturers to pre-load Chrome as the default browser; and whether the ban on manufacturers using Android-fork operating systems previously found non-infringing now warrants reconsideration in light of market conditions.
This investigation signals that the Board's scrutiny does not end with compliance — it follows through to assess whether remedies achieved their intended competitive effect or were simply restructured around the same outcomes.
EU–UK Competition Cooperation: A Post-Brexit Framework Takes Shape
On 25 February 2026, the European Commission and the United Kingdom signed the EU-UK Competition Cooperation Agreement, establishing a formal framework for joint coordination between the Commission, EU Member State competition authorities, and the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The agreement — the first dedicated competition cooperation instrument between the EU and UK since Brexit — requires both sides to notify each other of significant antitrust and merger investigations, coordinate enforcement where appropriate, and protect the confidentiality of shared information. Company-provided confidential data cannot be exchanged without the company's consent.
For multinational businesses managing parallel investigations in Brussels and London, a common reality post-Brexit, this agreement increases the risk of coordinated enforcement timelines and aligned investigative strategies. Parties and companies to cross-border transactions, and those under investigation on both sides of the Channel, should factor this closer alignment into their legal strategy.
Meta Faces Interim Measures Over WhatsApp AI Lockout
The European Commission sent a Statement of Objections to Meta on 9 February 2026, setting out its preliminary view that Meta's decision to ban third-party AI assistants from WhatsApp breaches Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the prohibition on abuse of a dominant position. Meta updated its WhatsApp Business Solution Terms in October 2025, effectively excluding all competing AI assistants from the platform as of 15 January 2026.
The Commission considers WhatsApp a critical access point for AI assistant distribution in the EEA, and Meta's conduct likely raises barriers to entry in a fast-moving market where early exclusion could be irreversible. The Commission is moving to impose interim measures — emergency remedies ordered before the main investigation concludes — to prevent irreparable competitive harm while proceedings continue. The case is a direct test of whether competition law can move fast enough to police AI markets in real time. Interim measures under Article 8 of Regulation 1/2003 are exceptional; their consideration here signals the Commission's view that competitive damage in AI cannot wait for a final decision.
TikTok's Addictive Design Breaches the DSA, Commission Says
The European Commission issued preliminary findings on 6 February 2026 that TikTok's core design features — infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, and its personalised recommendation engine — breach the Digital Services Act (DSA) by failing to adequately assess and mitigate their addictive effect on users, including minors. The Commission's investigation found that TikTok's existing tools (screen time management, parental controls) are insufficiently effective: they are easy to dismiss and place an unreasonable burden on parents to implement.
The Commission indicated that TikTok must make structural changes — disabling infinite scroll, building effective time breaks, and reconfiguring its recommendation system. If the preliminary findings are confirmed, TikTok faces a fine of up to 6% of its total worldwide annual turnover. Platform design is now a matter of regulatory compliance, not merely a product decision.
Shein Faces DSA Probe Over Illegal Products, Addiction Design, and Algorithm Opacity
On 17 February 2026, the European Commission opened formal proceedings against Shein under the Digital Services Act, investigating three distinct concerns: the sale of illegal products (including content potentially constituting child sexual abuse material); the addictive design of the platform through engagement rewards; and the opacity of its recommender systems. The Commission had sent Shein three information requests since June 2024. The concurrent DSA investigations into TikTok and Shein underscore that the Commission is building an enforcement posture around three recurring themes: illegal content systems, addictive design, and recommender system transparency.
CMA Locks In Commitments from Apple and Google on App Store Fairness
The UK Competition and Markets Authority announced on 10 February 2026 that it had secured voluntary commitments from Apple and Google — the first measures obtained since both companies were designated with Strategic Market Status (SMS) under the UK's Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act in October 2025. The commitments cover app review and ranking fairness (prohibiting self-preferencing), developer data protection, and critically for Apple, a new interoperability request process allowing developers to seek access to iOS and iPadOS features with an obligation on Apple to respond fairly and objectively.
The CMA will monitor compliance and report publicly. If the commitments are not implemented effectively, the CMA will impose formal conduct requirements. For developers — particularly in fintech, where access to Apple's digital wallet tools is a key pending issue — the commitments represent an enforceable baseline, not a ceiling.
Getty–Shutterstock: CMA Provisionally Finds Risk to UK Editorial Content Market
The Competition and Markets Authority provisionally concluded on 19 February 2026 that Getty Images' anticipated acquisition of Shutterstock would result in a substantial lessening of competition (SLC) in the supply of editorial content in the United Kingdom, while clearing the deal on stock content globally. The CMA found that the merged entity would command close to or above 50% of the UK editorial content market, with Shutterstock identified as one of only a handful of viable alternatives to Getty for UK news, sport, entertainment, and archive imagery. By contrast, the global stock content market benefits from strong competition from Adobe (including its Firefly GenAI offering) and growing pressure from Canva. The split outcome — SLC in editorial, clearance in stock — reflects the CMA's increasingly granular approach to product market definition in content businesses.
UMG Acquires Downtown — But Must Divest Curve Royalty Systems
The European Commission approved Universal Music Group's acquisition of Downtown Music Holdings on 13 February 2026, conditional on the full divestment of Downtown's royalty accounting platform, Curve Royalty Systems. The Commission's in-depth investigation found no competition concerns in recorded music, artist and label services, or music publishing. However, Curve presented a distinct data-access concern: UMG, once in control, would be able to access the commercially sensitive financial data of rival record labels that also use Curve for royalty processing, giving it an unfair intelligence advantage over competitors. The required divestment severs that risk entirely. The Curve remedy is a clean illustration of how modern merger control isolates data-driven harm: any target asset that processes competitors' data warrants its own competition analysis, independent of the main transaction.
Norwegian Authority Proposes NOK 30 Million Fine Against Schlumberger for Misleading Merger Filing
Norway's Konkurransetilsynet (Norwegian Competition Authority) issued a preliminary fine notice of NOK 30 million (approximately €2.5 million) to Schlumberger on 19 February 2026, for allegedly submitting inaccurate information in its merger notification regarding the acquisition of ChampionX. The authority found that the information provided on the parties' rankings in prior tender competitions for production chemicals, and on the products Schlumberger uses in Norwegian shelf drilling services, did not accurately reflect the actual situation. Filing accuracy in merger control is not a procedural formality — it is a substantive legal obligation. A material misstatement, even if later corrected, can independently trigger enforcement action.
UK CAT Rejects Mastercard and Visa's Pass-On Defence in MIF Damages Trial
The UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) issued its judgment on 18 February 2026 in Trial 2 of the Merchant Interchange Fee Umbrella Proceedings, rejecting the core of Mastercard and Visa's "pass-on" defence — the argument that merchants passed the unlawful interchange fee overcharges to consumers through higher retail prices, thereby avoiding compensable loss. The CAT held that establishing pass-on requires demonstrating a direct causal link between the specific overcharge and actual pricing decisions — not merely that the overcharge formed part of the merchant's general cost base. This ruling significantly narrows one of the most commonly deployed defences in competition damages proceedings.
Red Bull Appeals to EU Court of Justice Over Commission Inspection Decision
Red Bull filed an appeal before the Court of Justice of the European Union on 23 December 2025 (published in the Official Journal on 16 February 2026) against the General Court's October 2025 judgment in Case T-306/23, which upheld the Commission's 2023 inspection decision in the Red Bull (AT.40819) investigation. Red Bull raises six grounds: procedural unfairness in access to evidence; evidentiary insufficiency; the Commission's failure to obtain prior judicial authorisation for the inspection; insufficient precision in the inspection decision; disproportionality of the inspection scope; and violation of the right of access to a lawyer and legal professional privilege during the inspection itself. The grounds relating to judicial pre-authorisation and legal professional privilege during dawn raids are issues the EU courts have not definitively resolved — the Court of Justice's ruling will shape the procedural rights of all companies subject to Commission inspections.
DOJ Sues OhioHealth Over Anti-Competitive Hospital Contracting
The US Department of Justice Antitrust Division, together with the Ohio Attorney General, filed a civil antitrust complaint against OhioHealth Corporation on 20 February 2026 in the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. OhioHealth, the largest healthcare system in central Ohio with 16 hospitals and outpatient facilities, is accused of using its market power to impose "all-or-nothing" contracting terms, forcing insurers to include OhioHealth in all commercial networks regardless of price, and blocking the development of tiered or narrowed network health plans that would allow patients to choose lower-cost providers. US antitrust enforcement in healthcare has historically focused on hospital mergers. The OhioHealth complaint represents a targeted enforcement action against vertical contracting terms — the network restrictions that major hospital systems routinely negotiate into insurer agreements.
DOJ and FTC Launch Joint Public Inquiry on Competitor Collaboration Guidelines
The US Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission jointly launched a public inquiry on 23 February 2026, soliciting input on whether and how to revise guidance on collaborations among competitors following the December 2024 withdrawal of the 2000 Antitrust Guidelines for Collaborations Among Competitors. The inquiry seeks comment on which categories of collaboration warrant updated guidance (including joint licensing, conditional dealing, and information sharing), which technologies and business models require new treatment (algorithmic pricing, data collaborations, labour joint ventures), and what legal, economic, or technological developments should shape any revision. Comments of up to 18 pages can be submitted until 24 April 2026. The inquiry signals the current administration's intent to restore predictability in this area — a priority for industries increasingly reliant on data-sharing consortia, technology partnerships, and supply chain alliances.
Spain's CNMC Finds Apple and Amazon Failed to Comply with 2023 Order
Spain's Comisión Nacional de Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC) declared on 25 February 2026 that Apple and Amazon failed to comply with a cease and desist obligation imposed in its July 2023 sanctioning decision, which fined both companies €194 million for anticompetitive distribution clauses. The CNMC found that both companies continued the sanctioned conduct until May 2025, nearly two years after the resolution. Non-compliance with competition authority orders carries its own enforcement cycle — separate from any appeal of the underlying decision. Companies subject to cease and desist orders must treat implementation as a live obligation from the moment of decision, regardless of litigation status.
Check24 Drops Price Parity Clauses After Bundeskartellamt Investigation
Germany's Bundeskartellamt accepted binding commitments from Check24 on 24 February 2026, requiring the leading German energy comparison platform to abandon price parity clauses (also known as most-favoured nation or MFN clauses) in its contracts with energy suppliers. The authority's investigation, launched in July 2025, found that Check24 had contractual terms preventing gas and electricity suppliers from offering lower prices on competing comparison sites or through their own direct channels. Check24 commands 60–70% of Germany's online energy brokerage market. The commitments also prohibit "dimming" — reducing a supplier's visibility or ranking for failing to maintain price parity — and prevent Check24 from tying its commission to suppliers' pricing on other platforms. Operator-side MFN clauses that restrict supplier pricing across all channels are now routinely viewed as anticompetitive when deployed by dominant platforms.
*This newsletter is prepared solely for informational purposes and does not constitute any legal advice for a specific case or client.