Although this study is dedicated to the transparency of competition investigations in Turkey, it concerns issues highly relevant to other legal systems. Transparency is an essential element of rule of law since transparent, clear and consistent rules of law and practice create important conditions for efficient protection of rights of citizens. Transparency of the enforcement process of competition helps to establish the balance between the needs of interference of State into economic activities of undertakings, on one hand, and protection of economic freedoms, on the other. Transparency facilitates the access to important economic and legal information, clarity of regulations and predictability and consistency of administrative decisions. At the same time, ensuring transparency of competition investigations is not an easy task because it is linked with certain inevitable discretion of administrative bodies in the decision making procedure and protection of confidentiality of economic data of enterprises. Research conducted by the authors of this complex study shows that competition investigation in Turkey is facing similar problems as the competition investigation and enforcement in the European Union and the EU Member States: accessibility of investigation information, predictability and consistency of competition enforcement practice, etc. It is linked with the fact that that Turkey has chosen the same model as the model of competition law of the European Union and is transposing the rules of the EU competition law into Turkish national legal system. The European Commission in Turkey 2016 Report concluded that Competition Authority’s enforcement capacity is adequate and implementation of competition law is overall effective. The authors of this study also found that the legislation of competition and the Competition Authority are quite transparent in comparison with other fields of law and agencies in Turkey. At the same time, the study shows some uncertainty concerning accountability and predictability of the enforcement of competition regulations in Turkey. On the basis of the findings of this study, some recommendations that would improve the transparency of investigation processes are formulated. Research made by Murat Çokgezen, Ali Ilıcak and Fevzi Toksoy in collaboration with Bulut Girgin is devoted to transparency of regulations in the field of competition in Turkey in general. It is also specifically focused on two questions: first, how rules and policies to sustain competition are clear, open and accessible; and second, on transparency of the investigation process. The result of research is an interesting and comprehensive study which is no doubt the result of an extensive analysis
Transparency of the Regulatory Authorities in Turkey
It is clear that such practices by the Competition Board cause harm to consistency because the preliminary investigation does not span a sufficient enough amount of time to make a decision on a case, and undertakings do not have an opportunity to defend themselves
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