New Year, New Rules for Marketplaces in EU!

In April 2018, the European Commission had proposed regulation for fairness and transparency in online platform trading. Merely two days ago, The European Parliament, Commission, and Council reached a political agreement on regulating the business environment of online platforms.

The Commission announced that it would take concrete actions on unfair contracts and trading practices in platforms to business relations. This regulation was proposed last year along with the creation of an Observatory on the online platform economy. It was followed by an impact Assessment that incorporated evidence and stakeholders views collected during a two-year fact-finding exercise. The question is, why do we require these rules?

According to EU research on the digital economy, nearly half of business users (46%) experience problems with online intermediation services throughout their business relationship. Not to mention search engines play a major role as the top 5 search results attract 88% clicks leaving other businesses unable to compete. This leads to economic issues at stake resulting in €1.27m- €2.35m direct loss in sales. As there is also a lack of trust in the online economy due to such reasons the losses go up to €13.5 billion. Therefore, this commitment aims to ensure a safer environment for businesses online which is sustainable as well as predictable.