Abuse of the dominant position in the European Union and Turkish law and what data-driven economies bring

It is not forbidden to establish dominance in the market in the European Union and Turkish competition law systems. However, in order to protect competition in the market, abuse of dominance must be prevented. To this end, abuse of dominant position is prohibited in both legal systems. In order for a behavior or action exhibited by an undertaking alone or by more than one undertaking to be considered within the scope of the prohibition, the existence of a dominant position is firstly sought. For this reason, the definition of the concept of the dominant position has a decisive effect on the implementation of the prohibition. The determination of the dominant position also requires the determination of the relevant market. Boundaries of the relevant market; while determining the product and geographical dimensions, periodic changes are also taken into account in some cases. Market shares of the undertakings concerned, number of competitors, buyer power, market entry and growth barriers in the market are the criteria used to determine the dominant position. Due to the supranational structure of the European Union, in the implementation of the prohibition is as well as the existence of the dominant position takes into account the criterion that the effect on trade between member states. Apart from such differences arising from the supranational structure of the Union, the scope and application of the prohibition in European Union and Turkish competition law generally show parallelism. With the entry of data-driven economies into the field of competition, in the digital age we live in, it is seen that the ways, methods and approaches adopted in the implementation of the ban are also largely parallel. Data-driven economies have required the development of a new perspective in many areas, from the definition of the relevant market to the criteria to be applied in the determination of the dominant position in both legal systems. Within the scope of our study, the ongoing and arising from the implementation of the ban in traditional markets discussions such as the search for a causal link between the concepts of dominance and abuse in addition to this innovations and changes brought by data-driven economies are also discussed.