Rekabet Kurumu

OECD

RELATIONS WITH THE OECD:
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was established in 1961 to increase economic and social welfare. More than 50 years, OECD has been serving as a platform where states exchange their experiences and try to solve common problems jointly.

Competition law and policy is one of OECD’s areas of interest. OECD Competition Committee is responsible for competition law and policy. Under this committee, Working group no. 2 deals with the effects of regulatory transactions and legislation on competition whereas Working Group no.3 handles with cooperation in the area of competition and implementation of competition rules.

The Competition Committee prepares committee reports, best practice roundtables and policy briefs. The Competition Committee also performs the preparation of recommendations and best practices in the area of competition law and policy to be adopted by the OECD Council.

Competition Committee together with working groups no. 2 and 3 organizes two meetings annually to discuss the issues related to competition legislation. Beside those meetings, the Competition Committee holds a Global Forum on Competition as a continuation of the second annual meeting which is open not only to member states and observers but also to non-member states. Turkish Competition Authority regularly attends those meetings and makes contributions to discussions.

Turkish Competition Authority has been attending OECD meetings since 1998 and presents to the Competition Committee an English summary of its annual report. Furthermore, Turkish Competition Authority tries to be one of the active participants in meetings of the Competition Committee by means of drafting opinions for reports and recommendations prepared by the Competition Committee, as well as submitting written country contributions.

In addition, OECD prepares evaluation reports about members, Competition Assessment Toolkits, guides, recommendations, guidelines, etc. for fight against collusive bidding in public procurements. You can find information about the said work below.

OECD and Turkey

OECD published two evaluation reports about the regulatory reforms in Turkey. The first evaluation report was about “Regulatory Reform in Electricity, Gas and Road Freight Transport” and the second report was about “The Role of Competition Policy in Regulatory Reform”.

On the other hand, OECD pays special attention to “Competitive Impact Analysis” and “Collusive Bidding in Public Tenders”. Within this framework, Competition Assessment Toolkit prepared by the Competition Committee tries to help governments eliminate the barriers in front of competition by proposing a method to identify unnecessary restrictions on market activities as well as developing alternative measures less restrictive of competition that enables the governments to fulfill their policy objectives.

Competition Assessment Toolkit was prepared in 2007 and updated in 2010. In addition to “Principles” and “Guidance”, the third volume called “Operational Manual” to the Toolkit will be published in the future.

OECD also prepared two resources, one guidelines and the other recommendations, to help administrations fight against collusive bidding and conduct healthier public procurement transactions.

Guidelines for Fighting Bid Rigging in Public Procurement dated 2009 explains which methods could be used for bid rigging, which characteristics of the sector, good/service related to the procurement may facilitate bid rigging and includes a checklist to be used by public authorities to minimize the risk of bid rigging, whereas Recommendation of the OECD Council on Fighting Bid Rigging in Public Procurement makes four recommendations for public authorities to prevent undertakings in public procurements from bid rigging. Briefly, the first recommendation proposes that member states analyze the legislation about public procurement and evaluate its impact on bid rigging. The second recommendation advises that employees of administrative authorities should be educated to be able to recognize suspicious indications, behavior and bids given in an unusual way in procurements. The third recommendation suggests that employees of administrative authorities follow the guide dated 2009. The last recommendation advises that member states should develop instruments to evaluate the impact of laws and regulations related to public procurement on competition.

Turkish Competition Authority prepared written country contributions in the following subjects discussed during meetings of the Competition Committee and working groups under the body of the Committee:

OECD CONTRIBUTIONS

Economic policies of OECD members are subject to a review process based on a multi-disciplinary approach focusing on the capacity to manage regulatory reform on the basis of issues such as competition policy and enforcement, competitiveness of markets and the rules and policies making up the regulatory framework of specific sectors. Within this framework, a review has been conducted for Turkey in 2002 under OECD Regulatory Reform Programme and the report entitled “Turkey - Crucial Support for Economic Recovery” was prepared. The third chapter of the report is devoted to Competition Policy in Turkey. In addition to the third chapter, detailed information is available through the “Background report on Competition Policy in Regulatory Reform”.

Beside the abovementioned report of 2002, Competition Committee carries out a peer review process about members’ competition law and policy. In this context, during OECD Global Forum on Competition on February 18, 2005 Turkey - Peer Review of Competition Law and Policy was discussed and competition law and policy in Turkey was analyzed in detail by means of the said report.

The summary of the Review Report may be beneficial in terms of indicating the state of the Turkish competition policy in the latest times:

"This Report assesses the development and application during the last three years of competition law and policy in Turkey. It follows an OECD report prepared in 2002 as part of a larger regulatory reform study. The previous Report concluded that the Turkish Competition Authority made a good start since it began operations in late 1997. The authority continues to make excellent progress since 2002, and has developed a reputation as one of Turkey's most effective and best administered agencies. It has pursued its mission with energy, imagination, and integrity and has won respect and support from leaders in the business community. Most importantly, it has played a critical role in moving the Turkish economy forward to greater reliance on competition-based and consumer-welfare oriented market mechanisms."

The Authority pays great attention to the findings of The Review Report in respect of the studies related to the implementation of the Act no. 4054 on the Protection of Competition.

COMPETITION ASSESSMENT TOOLKIT

OECD Competition Committee has prepared a "Competition Assessment Toolkit" which can be taken into consideration by all relevant public institutions and organizations in their Regulatory Impact Analysis studies.

OECD Guidelines on fighting collusive bidding in public procurements.

OECD Competition Committee has developed a methodology to help administrations fight with collusive bidding and make public procurements healthier. OECD Guidelines on fighting collusive bidding in public procurements, which was prepared with input from more than 30 countries, assists procurement officials first in decreasing the risk of collusive practices by carefully designing the procurement process, and second, in detecting collusive agreements during the procurement process.

The relevant guidelines have been translated into Turkish. Its Turkish version, as well as other languages, may be found at www.oecd.org/competition/bidrigging.

OECD WORKING PAPER