In accordance with the Competition Board (Board) decision dated 06.04.2023 and numbered 23-17/301-M, an investigation was launched on Storytel Turkey Yayıncılık Hizmetleri AŞ (STORYTEL) to examine the claim that it violated Articles 4 and 6 of the Act no 4054 on the Protection of Competition by preventing competitors from entering and growing in the market for online audio book streaming services through the long-term exclusive agreements it signed with publishing houses and authors.

While the investigation process was ongoing, STORYTEL made an application to initiate a commitments process about the competitive concerns in the file and presented its final commitments package as a result of the negotiations held as part of that process.

After discussing the file in its meeting of 30.11.2023 at the end of the commitments process, the Board accepted the commitments in the final package submitted by STORYTEL on the grounds that they were capable of eliminating the competitive issues identified within the framework of the file caused by STORYTEL’s conduct, quickly implementable and efficiently applicable, and took the decision no 23-55/1076-380 terminating the investigation launched on STORYTEL by rendering the commitments in the final commitments text binding for STORYTEL.

The detailed versions of the accepted commitments will be included in the reasoned decision, but a summary of the commitments package submitted by STORYTEL is as follows:

1. Existing Narration Licensing Agreements which were signed with publishing houses/right holders before the date the commitments were made binding and which have been in effect for more than a year will be amended to ensure that they do not grant an exclusive right to STORYTEL for producing an audio version of a particular book.
2. Existing Narration Licensing Agreements signed before the date the commitments were made binding and which have been in effect for less than a year will be amended to ensure that they do not grant an exclusive right to STORYTEL after the expiry of one year following the date of signature of the relevant agreement.
3. Narration Licensing Agreements signed after the date the commitments were made binding will not grant an exclusive right to STORYTEL for producing an audio version of a particular book.
4. Exclusivity will not be granted to STORYTEL on content distributed via Content Distribution Agreements.
5. Narration Agreements will not include any obligations on Narrators to narrate exclusively for STORYTEL.