Unfair Trade Practices and Monopolistic Acts in Digital Platforms

Written by Ng Shi Chen

The rapid growth of digital markets, especially in e-commerce and multi-sided platform business, has raised significant concerns about unfair trade practices and monopolistic acts.

On 19 August 2025, the Trade Competition Commission of Thailand released the Draft Guidelines for Considering Unfair Trade Practices and Monopolistic Acts in Multi-Sided Platform Business, Digital Services, and E-Commerce (‘the Draft Guideline’) to address these issues.

The Draft Guideline establishes four principles:

1. business operations must be fair;

2. discrimination must be prevented;

3. business conditions must be reasonable and justifiable; and

4. market competition must not be diminished.

The Draft Guideline identifies two main categories of potentially anti-competitive conduct and unfair trade practices, namely price-related and non-price-related behaviours.

Price-related Behaviours

Price-related behaviours include:

1. predatory pricing (setting prices below the average total cost without reasonable justification);

2. rate parity clause (restricting the sellers from offering lower prices on other platforms);

3. resale price maintenance (imposing resale prices on the sellers and penalising non-compliance);

4. excessive or discriminatory commissions and fees (charging unjustified commissions and fees); and

5. algorithmic price manipulation (using algorithms or automated ranking system to distort market prices unfairly).

Non-price-related Behaviours

Non-price-related behaviours on the other hand, include:

1. self-preferencing (prioritising the platform’s own products, while limiting the visibility of competitors’ products);

2. tying and coercion (compelling the sellers to use the platform’s specific services);

3. exclusive dealing (imposing restrictions that prevent the sellers’ from engaging with other platforms);

4. discriminatory practices (treating the sellers unfairly without reasonable justification);

5. data leveraging (exploiting data collected from the sellers to give the platform’s affiliated businesses an undue competitive advantage); and

6. collusion (coordinating with competing platforms or sellers on competitive elements, such as advertisement keyword bidding).

The Draft Guideline applies to a wide range of stakeholders who hold a significant position in the market, including digital platform operators, sellers, logistics providers, advertisers, and payment service providers. While the Draft Guideline offers much-needed clarity, its broad scope and extensive implication may pose significant compliance challenges for the stakeholders. Therefore, the Draft Guideline was made available for public consultation for a month, from 19 August 2025 to 18 September 2025, to ensure that the final guideline is practical and balanced, while promoting genuine competition and innovation that benefit all market participants.

The Malaysian Position

In Malaysia, the existing laws that regulate unfair trade practices and monopolistic acts in multi-sided platform business, digital services, and e-commerce include the Consumer Protection Act 1999, the Consumer Protection (Electronic Trade Transaction) Regulations 2024, Competition Act 2010, and Electronic Commerce Act 2006. It is recommended that Malaysia may consider developing specific guidelines, similar to Thailand’s approach, to address challenges arising from the rapid growth of digital markets, and to invite public consultation to ensure the practicality of guidelines.

Published on 27 October 2025