Competition Authority imposes fine on Electrolux

The Competition Authority had previously made an official announcement and issued a daily fine decision for Meta, the parent company of Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook.

Numerous details were included in the post titled “Announcement of the Board Decision Regarding the Failure to Fulfill Obligations by META.” In summary, upon the expiration of the period granted to Meta to remove the data-sharing requirement imposed on WhatsApp users via a software update, the authority decided to impose a daily administrative fine of 4.7 million Turkish Lira on the company, effective from December 12, 2023.

The following was stated exactly:

“It has been decided with decision number 23-60/1162-417 to impose an administrative fine of 4,796,152.96 TL per day on the META economic entity, consisting of Meta Platforms, Inc., Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, and WhatsApp LLC, based on their 2022 gross revenues, starting from 12.12.2023, until the Final Compliance Solution is recorded by the Competition Authority.”

ANNOUNCED THE FINE

The statement also included the following:

It was determined that META holds a dominant position in the markets for personal social networking services, consumer communication services, and online video advertising; that by combining data collected from Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp services—referred to as core services—META hinders the activities of its competitors operating in the personal social networking and online video advertising markets and creates barriers to entry, thereby leading to a distortion of competition and violating Article 6 of Law No. 4054. Therefore, it was decided to impose a joint administrative fine of 346,717,193.40 TL on Meta Platforms, Inc., Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, and WhatsApp LLC, based on their annual gross revenues at the end of the 2021 fiscal year as determined by the Board, in accordance with the third paragraph of Article 16 of Law No. 4054 and the provisions of Article 5, paragraph 1 (b), paragraph 2, and paragraph 3 (b) of the “Regulation on Fines to be Imposed in Cases of Restrictive Agreements, Concerted Practices and Decisions, and Abuse of Dominant Position.” To terminate the violation specified in clause (c) and to ensure the establishment of effective competition in the market, it was decided that META must fulfill the following obligations: Submit the necessary measures to the Competition Authority (the Authority) within 1 (one) month at the latest from the notification of the reasoned decision, implement the necessary measures within 6 (six) months from the notification of the reasoned decision, and submit periodic reports to the Authority once a year for a period of 5 (five) years starting from the implementation of the first compliance measure. 

News Source: 12punto