On the Legal Regulations of Platform Operators’ Unreasonable Restrictions on Transactions

Purpose/Significance Platform operators have superior regulatory power, and may impose unreasonable restrictions on transactions such as exclusivity, discrimination, and exploitation of operators on the platform, which directly damage the legitimate rights and interests of operators on the platform and hinders free and fair competition in the platform market. There is an urgent need for legal regulations. Design/Methodology Through combing the legal regulation system before the implementation of the E-Commerce Law, this article shows that platform operators unreasonably restrict transactions in the regulation of standard terms, and competition laws and regulations have loopholes. On the one hand, it is reminded that the weakening of obligations, the difficulty in applying the principle of fairness, and the limited role of platform rules for filing and reviewing make the standard terms regulatory system unable to respond; on the other hand, unreasonable restrictions on trading behaviors are also difficult to be fully covered by the Anti-Monopoly Law and Anti-Unfair Competition Law. Findings/Conclusions Article 35 of the E-Commerce Law establishes a “prohibition + reasonable defense” clause for unreasonably restricted transactions, specifically stipulating administrative legal responsibilities. It is the development of legal regulations for unreasonable restrictions on transactions by platform operators. The key implementation points of “relative advantage”, “unreasonable restrictions” and “obviously unreasonable restrictions” contained in Article 35 of the E-Commerce Law need to be further enriched.