(China, 26th) The State Administration for Market Regulation of China has issued guidelines requiring online trading platforms to formulate charging standards and fulfill commitments to reduce or waive fees.
On Sunday (May 25), the China Market Regulation General Administration published on its official website the recently drafted "Compliance Guidelines for Charging Behaviors of Online Trading Platforms (Draft for Comments)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Guidelines"). These are to standardize the behavior of online trading platforms in charging commissions, deductions, membership fees, technical service fees, information service fees, marketing promotion fees, and other fees from operators within the platform, protect the legitimate rights and interests of operators within the platform, and promote healthy and orderly development of the platform economy. The administration has sought public opinions on this matter.
The "Guidelines" consists of 28 articles, covering five aspects. Firstly, it clarifies that platform charges should adhere to the principles of fairness, legality, and credit in good faith, taking into account the service agreement, trading rules, trading habits, and other factors, as well as comprehensively considering operating costs and the operating conditions of the operators within the platform.
Secondly, platforms are encouraged to adopt flexible and diverse pricing strategies within the scope of legality, reasonableness, mutual benefit, to provide concessions or reductions for operators within the platform, especially small and medium-sized merchants, actively assuming social responsibility and alleviating the operational burden of operators within the platform.
The third requires the platform to implement the subject responsibility for compliance management according to relevant regulations, to improve the compliance management organization, equipped with compliance management personnel, establish mechanisms such as risk identification and assessment of unreasonable charges, and pre-compliance review, thereby enhancing the platform's ability to manage charging compliance.
Fourthly, it is clarified that platforms must reasonably formulate charging standards, improve charging rules, and systems mechanisms such as fee disclosure mechanisms, strictly fulfill fee reduction or exemption commitments, prudently assess the necessity of collecting deposits, and conduct promotional services on an equal and voluntary basis, ensuring the right to know and choose for operators within the platform. Additionally, eight types of unreasonable charging behaviors are specified, including repeated charges, charging without services, and transferring fees that the platform itself should bear.
Fifthly, platforms are required to timely respond to the concerns of operators within the platform regarding fees, actively cooperate with supervision and inspection, strengthen industry self-discipline, and participate fairly in market competition.
When answering questions from reporters on the "Guidelines" draft for comment, the person in charge of the Price Supervision and Anti-Monopoly Bureau of China's Market Regulation General Administration said that the "Guidelines" sets multiple provisions to reinforce the openness and transparency of platform fees, including requiring platforms to clearly disclose the items, rules, and standards of fees charged for marketing promotions to ensure operators within the platform can accurately verify fees; platforms that revise charging items, rules, standards, or other content of platform service agreements or trading rules must publicly solicit opinions in a prominent position on the homepage for no less than seven days. Platforms that modify the content involving charging items, rules, standards of platform service agreements must completely save all historical versions effective three years before the date of version modification.
On Sunday (May 25), the China Market Regulation General Administration published on its official website the recently drafted "Compliance Guidelines for Charging Behaviors of Online Trading Platforms (Draft for Comments)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Guidelines"). These are to standardize the behavior of online trading platforms in charging commissions, deductions, membership fees, technical service fees, information service fees, marketing promotion fees, and other fees from operators within the platform, protect the legitimate rights and interests of operators within the platform, and promote healthy and orderly development of the platform economy. The administration has sought public opinions on this matter.
The "Guidelines" consists of 28 articles, covering five aspects. Firstly, it clarifies that platform charges should adhere to the principles of fairness, legality, and credit in good faith, taking into account the service agreement, trading rules, trading habits, and other factors, as well as comprehensively considering operating costs and the operating conditions of the operators within the platform.
Secondly, platforms are encouraged to adopt flexible and diverse pricing strategies within the scope of legality, reasonableness, mutual benefit, to provide concessions or reductions for operators within the platform, especially small and medium-sized merchants, actively assuming social responsibility and alleviating the operational burden of operators within the platform.
The third requires the platform to implement the subject responsibility for compliance management according to relevant regulations, to improve the compliance management organization, equipped with compliance management personnel, establish mechanisms such as risk identification and assessment of unreasonable charges, and pre-compliance review, thereby enhancing the platform's ability to manage charging compliance.
Fourthly, it is clarified that platforms must reasonably formulate charging standards, improve charging rules, and systems mechanisms such as fee disclosure mechanisms, strictly fulfill fee reduction or exemption commitments, prudently assess the necessity of collecting deposits, and conduct promotional services on an equal and voluntary basis, ensuring the right to know and choose for operators within the platform. Additionally, eight types of unreasonable charging behaviors are specified, including repeated charges, charging without services, and transferring fees that the platform itself should bear.
Fifthly, platforms are required to timely respond to the concerns of operators within the platform regarding fees, actively cooperate with supervision and inspection, strengthen industry self-discipline, and participate fairly in market competition.
When answering questions from reporters on the "Guidelines" draft for comment, the person in charge of the Price Supervision and Anti-Monopoly Bureau of China's Market Regulation General Administration said that the "Guidelines" sets multiple provisions to reinforce the openness and transparency of platform fees, including requiring platforms to clearly disclose the items, rules, and standards of fees charged for marketing promotions to ensure operators within the platform can accurately verify fees; platforms that revise charging items, rules, standards, or other content of platform service agreements or trading rules must publicly solicit opinions in a prominent position on the homepage for no less than seven days. Platforms that modify the content involving charging items, rules, standards of platform service agreements must completely save all historical versions effective three years before the date of version modification.