Turkish Competition Authority 2026 agenda: what it means for your data

The announcements published by the Turkish Competition Authority in 2026 show that the regulator is looking not only at pricing and tender conduct but also at how data and content are used. A tender investigation, the conclusion of a sector-wide investigation, a sector inquiry’s preliminary report and an investigation into AI services with an interim measure were all announced within a few months of each other. That agenda gives every organization a concrete reason to review its own document, access and evidence environment.

The 2026 announcements: what was said and what was not

For international readers: the Turkish Competition Authority (Rekabet Kurumu) is the public body responsible for competition enforcement in Türkiye. It opens investigations into undertakings, conducts sector inquiries, publishes guidelines and announces its decisions on its website. This article is limited to the titles and dates of its public announcements; it does not comment on their content, parties or possible outcomes. It is not legal advice; Seratus supports an organization’s compliance program and does not replace counsel.

Date	Announcement title (as published)	Type
10.8.2026	İlaç Sektör İncelemesi Ön Raporu Yayımlanmıştır (pharmaceutical sector inquiry preliminary report published)	Sector inquiry, preliminary report
24.9.2026	İlaç Sektöründe Rekabet Çalıştayı Düzenlendi (competition workshop in the pharmaceutical sector)	Sector workshop
19.10.2026	Yemek Hizmeti Alım İhalelerinde Faaliyet Gösteren Teşebbüsler Hakkında Soruşturma Başlatıldı (investigation opened, catering service procurement tenders)	Tender investigation, opened
26.10.2026	MDF ve Yonga Levha Sektöründe Yürütülen Soruşturma Sonuçlandı (investigation in the MDF and particleboard sector concluded)	Sector investigation, concluded
2.11.2026	Google Hakkında Yapay Zeka Önizlemeleri ve Yapay Zeka Modu Hizmetlerine İlişkin Soruşturma Açıldı ve Geçici Tedbir Uygulanmasına Karar Verildi (investigation opened regarding AI Overviews and AI Mode services; interim measure decided)	Investigation opened, interim measure

What the five announcements have in common is this: each points to a process that may require undertakings in a sector to produce documents and information, to answer questions about access and sharing patterns, and to prove their own controls. Whether an organization is ready for such a process depends on the visibility of its data environment before it depends on the skill of its legal team.

The tender investigation: bid files and correspondence

The announcement of 19 October 2026 states that an investigation was opened into undertakings active in catering service procurement tenders. Without going beyond the announcement, it is enough to note that tender processes are on the authority’s agenda.

For any organization that participates in tenders, this means a specific set of documents gains importance: bid files, unit price calculation sheets, cost analyses, notes recording decisions to enter or skip a tender, and correspondence before and after the tender. These documents typically sit on sales and tender team shares, in project folders, on SharePoint sites and in mail archives.

Three data controls stand out:

• Finding. All bid and calculation documents for a given tender or period must be listable quickly, whatever source they live in. This is needed not only to answer an investigation but for the organization’s own internal audit.
• Limiting access. Access to tender files should be restricted to the assigned team during and after the tender. Broad permissions left on closed tender folders are a finding that is hard to explain.
• Evidence. Who accessed which document and when, when access was narrowed and who approved it must be on record.

The Seratus competition compliance module finds these documents through taxonomy categories such as “tender file” and “bid calculation”; the access and exposure graph shows access and sharing status; review decisions are written to the audit log.

The sector investigation: document requests across a whole sector

The announcement of 26 October 2026 states that an investigation conducted in the MDF and particleboard sector was concluded. The content of the conclusion is outside this article’s scope, but the announcement is a reminder that sector-wide investigations are long processes and that their conclusion is made public.

A sector-wide investigation can mean that several undertakings in the same sector are asked for documents and information at the same time. The practical questions for an organization are: where are price lists and price change decisions kept? In which archives are the notes and correspondence of meetings with industry associations and competitors? With whom have capacity and production plans been shared?

Answering those questions depends on having classified the document environment in advance. Searching from scratch during an investigation is slow and incomplete; documents in mail archives and on local disks are usually missed. Seratus scans all of those sources read-only, mail archives included, and lists them by category.

Sector inquiry and workshop: the structural view

The announcement of 10 August 2026 states that the preliminary report of the pharmaceutical sector inquiry was published; the news item of 24 September 2026 reports that a competition workshop was held in the pharmaceutical sector. A sector inquiry focuses on how a sector functions rather than on the conduct of specific undertakings; the report’s content and conclusions are not commented on here.

The lesson for organizations is that a sector inquiry’s data requests can differ from those of an investigation: more structural information such as pricing structure, distribution channels, contract terms and market share data may be requested. That information mostly lives in databases (sales, contract and distribution systems), on finance shares and in management decks.

Preparing for a sector inquiry starts with knowing where that structural information is and who can reach it. Seratus database discovery (Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL/MySQL) provides column- and table-level classification together with a role-to-table permission graph; on the file side, cost and margin sheets, customer terms and contract annexes are flagged by category. That visibility ensures that requested information is collected consistently and that data outside the request is not shared by mistake.

AI and content use: data enters competition scrutiny

The announcement of 2 November 2026 states that an investigation was opened regarding AI Overviews and AI Mode services and that an interim measure was decided. The announcement is framed around traffic to news publishers and content use agreements. Without commenting on the parties, the content or the possible outcome, the general lesson is clear: how data and content are used can become the subject of competition scrutiny.

This raises a new question for every organization that provides or uses AI services: under which agreements, for which purposes and in which systems is the organization’s content and data being used? Are the sources and usage terms of datasets used for model training, summarization or recommendation documented? Is third-party content processed in line with licence and contract terms?

The data management counterpart of those questions is the discovery and classification of datasets and content agreements. Seratus classifies datasets, contract and licence documents in S3-compatible object storage and file sources and shows who can reach them. The architecture of Seratus itself is relevant here: optional LLM enrichment runs only on the organization’s own or self-hosted model, and no data is sent to external AI services. Details: private LLM and air gap.

Before and during an investigation: two kinds of readiness

From a compliance program perspective, two time frames are distinct.

Before an investigation, the goal is to find and reduce risky material proactively: classify competitively sensitive documents, narrow broad access, remove access held by departed employees, route competitor information found in mail archives into a review workflow, and accumulate evidence of a working program.

During an investigation, the goal is to find the requested documents quickly and completely, avoid sharing documents outside the request, and prove which controls have been in place since when. Being able to say “we restricted access to these documents on this date, and this person approved the decision” strengthens the legal team’s position.

Seratus supports both phases with the same tool: cross-source search, category and access filters, a review queue, second-approver sign-off and an audit log with who, when and why. Reports are exported as PDF, Excel or CSV, and findings can be forwarded to SIEM and request management systems.

How Seratus closes these gaps

Gap 1: Tender and bid documents are scattered and cannot be found when requested. The competition compliance module collects documents matching “tender file”, “bid calculation” and “cost sheet” categories from file servers, Microsoft 365, object storage and mail archives in one list; a source-level detail report can be attached to the response. Details: agentless DSPM.

Gap 2: Closed tender folders are still broadly accessible. The access and exposure graph shows “everyone in the organization” and anonymous link shares, access held by departed users and unresolved SIDs; permission removal runs through the approval workflow.

Gap 3: No preparation for a sector-wide document request. A pre-classified document environment with category and access filters allows the requested document set to be extracted consistently without mixing in documents outside the request.

Gap 4: Structural information (pricing, contract terms) is invisible inside databases. Sampling-based classification and a role-to-table permission graph for Oracle, SQL Server and PostgreSQL/MySQL; a “not found in the sample” result is never presented as a risk decision. Details: SQL Server integration.

Gap 5: Dataset and content agreement usage is undocumented. Datasets, licence and contract documents in S3-compatible object storage and file sources are classified, and access and sharing status is shown.

Gap 6: It cannot be proven since when controls have been in place. Every review and remediation decision is assigned to an owner, approved by a separate authority and written to the audit log; the audit report and executive summary are produced as PDF, Excel or CSV. Details: remediation and evidence.

Takeaway

The Turkish Competition Authority’s 2026 agenda ranges from tender processes to sector investigations, and from sector inquiries to AI and content use. Each of these can turn into a process that requires an organization to find its documents, limit access and prove its controls. Seratus delivers those three capabilities inside the organization’s own network, with no data leaving it; the legal design of the compliance program is done together with counsel.