Stakeholders against new digital commerce law

Stakeholders at a roundtable claimed that most of the problems related to digital commerce businesses and payment methods can be solved by the existing laws.

So, they opined, there is no need to frame a new digital commerce law.

They also claimed that introducing a new digital commerce law with a good number of strict provisions will discourage small business ventures based on digital platforms.

The digital commerce business insiders came up with the observations at a roundtable held at the board room of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) on Wednesday.

AKM Fahim Mashroor, CEO of e-commerce platform ajkerdeal.com, said, “The Consumers Rights Act has covered most of the issues like illegal production and marketisation of products and distribution of purchased products.

“More than 50,000 cases were filed under consumer rights act, but not a single case was resolved. So, what is the use of framing a new law instead of implementing the prevailing ones?” questioned Fahim.

Informing that as per the draft law every logistics company must be registered with Mailing and Courier Service Authority under Posts and Telecommunication Division, Fahim, also the chairman of the BASIS Standing Committee on Fin Tech & Digital Payment, said, “Those who will run logistics services without registration are already committing crime as per the prevailing law. There is no need to address the same issue in any newly framed law.”

Syed Mohammad Kamal, director at BASIS, said, “We think that such law is not required now, we have discussed it with consumers rights directorate and Bangladesh Bank. We said that payment side is well-covered by the existing rules.”

The digital commerce act will make e-commerce business more complicated. E-commerce sector is bouncing back after the fall due to scams in the sector, if new rules and regulations are imposed the businesses will be hampered again, said Kamal, also the country manager at MasterCard.

Waseem Alim, co-founder and CEO of Chaldal.com, said the country’s e-commerce sector is still very small. Major portion of the sector is covered by small facebook merchants, and such a new law will be a blow to their growth.

The new law will restrict our businesses rather than helping to flourish, he added.

As per the draft Digital Commerce Act, online platforms will be fined three times the value of goods and services sold if they fail to deliver them within the stipulated time. In addition, failure to pay such fines will result in a maximum of three months of imprisonment.

For advertising illegal goods and services or organising online gambling and betting, there will be a fine of Tk 3 lakh or three years of imprisonment or both.

The proposed law also makes it mandatory for online platforms to disclose accurate information about the description, size and measurement of goods and services in the digital marketplace.