Competition Board decided to perform a sector study in its meeting held on April 6, 2017 within the purpose of determining behavioural and structural competition issues in the exposition sector of Turkey and finding solution suggestions for these issues.

There are three parties in the exposition sector: these are operators of the exposition grounds, undertakings organizing expositions and participating undertakings. In addition to this, undertakings which provide peripheral services to the sector, associations of undertaking which are active in the exposition sector and others, some public institutions and agencies, and exposition visitors are also stakeholders of the exposition sector.

When we consider the experiences of the Competition Board in the past, exposition sector has basically been the subject Competition Law enforcement because of

• the problems within the relations between operators of exposition grounds and exposition organizers, 
• problems within the relations between exposition organizers and exposition participators and
•  problems within the relations between the undertakings which provide peripheral

 services to the sector and operators of exposition grounds or exposition organizers.

In terms of the relations among the sector stakeholders, we can evaluate the non-compete provisions on exposition organizers or exposition participators, supply exclusive obligations on exposition ground operators and obligations introduced by associations of undertakings representing exposition participators on their members within the framework of their agreements with the exposition organizers as violations of the 4th article of the Act 4054 on the Protection of Competition. However, if provisions mentioned above meet all of the conditions in the article 5 of the act, they can benefit from the exemptions granted within the same article. Within the framework of the sector study, basic goal for conduct falling under article 4 of the Act is to reveal the effects of these agreements and actions for the competitive structure of the sector and determine the conditions under which these can benefit from the exemptions provided with article 5 of the Act.

As it is known, exposition activity may be conducted by organizations, which hold exposition certification under the procedures and principles as determined by the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges, on areas suitable for organizing expositions in the exposition ground. Due to the market structure, dominant position can be created especially in the markets for exposition ground operation and exposition organization. In the related Board decisions, conduct examined in the scope of the article 6 of the act are generally the refusal of exposition grounds renting demands of exposition organizers by the exposition ground operators or declining participation in the exposition demands of the exposition participants by the exposition organizers. Within the sector study, the basic goal related to the behaviors to be evaluated in the scope of article 6 of the Act is to analyze the sector structure and the position of the actors in the sector regarding the exposition grounds operation and exposition organization activities in details, and to establish the parameters which will underlie the establishment of dominant position as well as the elements which will shed light on the assessment of the abusive conduct.

However, regarding exposition sector, another subject to address is the competitive problems which may arise due to the consolidation of the control of the exposition grounds in Turkey in only one or a few undertakings as a result of the concentration transactions that are not subject to authorization by Competition Board under article 7 of the Act. In this context, the purpose of the sector study is to analyse the changes in the structure of the exposition sector and positions of the actors in the sector through time separately with respect to the activities of exposition grounds operation and exposition organization, and to offer solutions for any structural problems identified.

It is obvious that revealing the behavioral and/or structural problems which may be addressed under article 4, 6 and 7 of the Act and their effect on the competitive structure of the market will only be possible by correctly determining the relevant market. For this reason, one of the sector study’s aims is to create a framework for the definition of relevant product market and relevant geographical market in terms of exposition grounds operation and exposition organization activities.

In the scope of sector study carried out by the Authority, in addition to the behavioural and structural problems summarised above, another objective is to deal with the legislation regulating the sector and the structure of institutions which enforce this legislation with a competitive perspective.

Sector stakeholders can send their opinions and suggestions about the study to fuar_sektor@rekabet.gov.tr until to 31.08.2017. Stakeholders’ opinions will be published on the website of the Authority and, if they request anonymity, they should also send this request with their opinions.

Respectfully announced to the public.