On July 11, the Ministry of Justice announced that it had just held a meeting of the Council for the Appraisal of the Law on E-commerce.
At the meeting, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vietnam's e-commerce was highly appreciated by prestigious market research organizations (ranked 3rd in Southeast Asia in terms of scale in 2024 and 5th in the world in terms of growth rate in 2022).
The e-commerce market is an attractive investment destination for many foreign investors, helping Vietnamese consumers become global consumers, able to access diverse and rich products both domestically and internationally. Vietnamese small and medium enterprises have taken advantage of modern platforms to develop distribution channels for goods and products.
However, legal regulations on e-commerce are only at the Decree level, so they are not effective enough to regulate important multi-sectoral issues in e-commerce.
Policies and regulations on e-commerce have revealed some shortcomings and limitations as follows: The legal system on e-commerce still lacks unity and comprehensiveness; new e-commerce models do not have separate regulations, posing many risks; the problem of counterfeit goods, banned goods, goods violating intellectual property rights, poor quality goods have not been thoroughly controlled; cross-border e-commerce activities have developed rapidly but also have many potential complications...
The E-commerce Law is designed to perfect policies and laws on e-commerce in the direction of encouraging creativity in developing and implementing regulations, ensuring stability, unity, synchronization, transparency, feasibility; protecting the legitimate rights and interests of consumers; creating motivation for competition and creative development of businesses; supporting and encouraging the activities of social organizations.
At the same time, the draft Law also sets out specific requirements for livestream sales activities. The platform owner must authenticate the identity of the livestream user, publicize and implement real-time control mechanisms and measures for livestream sales content;
The seller provides livestreamers with legal documents proving that they meet the conditions.
livestreamers are not allowed to provide false or confusing information about the uses, origin, quality, prices, promotions, warranty policies and other contents related to goods and services; correctly implement the advertising content that has been confirmed by competent authorities.
Notably, the draft Law prohibits trading, creating conditions for others to trade in counterfeit goods, goods that violate intellectual property rights, smuggled goods, goods of unknown origin, origin, expired goods, and goods that violate legal regulations on product quality.
An important new point is to prohibit the use of algorithms or measures to limit or prioritize the display of products, goods, and services of business organizations and individuals without publicly disclosing selection criteria. This is to ensure fairness and transparency on e-commerce platforms.
