In more detail
The TCCT stated in its recent newsletter that the Office of Trade Competition Commission has drafted a notification on unfair trade and monopolizing practices, or practices that would lessen or restrict competition for multi-sided platforms and e-commerce. The draft will later be published for public hearing. As the rationale for these guidelines, the TCCT cited network effect as a large number of users of online platforms could lead to market dominance or barriers to entry. It is currently unclear when the draft will be made available to the public.
As the name of the notification suggests, the notification will likely be published pursuant to section 57 (unfair trade practice) and section 54 (cartel) of the Competition Act 2017. To date, a similar set of guidelines has been published for the fruit trade business. Other sector/commercial relationship specific guidelines – including those for online food delivery, modern trade, franchising, and SMEs – have been issued pursuant to section 57 (unfair trade practice) only.
Given the TCCT's involvement in developing the Platform Economy Act, the enactment of which is currently halted after the Cabinet resolved that its enactment be reconsidered, it will be interesting to see what conduct will be included in these multi-sided and e-commerce platform guidelines, particularly whether any ex-ante regulations will make their way into the draft.
We are closely monitoring the development of this new TCCT notification.
