Competition Board concluded the preliminary inquiry conducted into the allegation that OPET violated Article 4 of the Act no 4054 on the Protection of Competition with the vertical agreements it signed.

As noted in numerous decisions taken by the Competition Board, usufruct agreements, title deed annotated lease and other agreements with similar effects may result in a de facto situation where duration of the non-compete obligation placed on the dealer to exceed the five year maximum limit regulated in the Block Exemption Communiqué on Vertical Agreements, no 2002/2. Consequently, dealership contracts as well as related usufruct and title deed annotated lease agreements are considered a single agreement due to the legal and economic relationships between them. As stated in the Guidelines on Vertical Agreements, an ongoing competition ban between the distributor and the dealer is considered to start on the signature date of the dealership agreement. On the other hand, the termination date of the non-competition obligation is taken to be the date on which all of the dealership, etc. agreements between the parties that include non-competition obligations, as well as all of the usufruct, title deed annotated rent and equipment contracts that affect the duration of the former agreements are terminated. In this framework, in case usufruct, lease, etc. agreements are terminated while the dealership contracts are kept, or conversely, in case existing dealership contracts are terminated while usufruct, lease, etc. agreements are kept and a new agreement in the same nature is signed between the parties, the vertical relationship is considered uninterrupted and the five-year period is calculated accordingly.

After discussing the information, documents and observations in the file at its meeting of 20.02.2025, the Competition Board decided that the findings which suggested that while the dealership contract was still in effect, an extension had been made to the leasehold right established in favor of OPET on the land where the dealership activities were conducted and thereby the vertical relationship between the complainant dealer and OPET had been structured to last more than five years were significant and sufficient, and launched an investigation on OPET with the decision numbered 25-07/158-M.

The investigation will examine whether OPET violated Article 4 of the Act no 4054 on the Protection of Competition through vertical agreements, with a focus on the non-compete obligations included in the relevant vertical agreements.