RC/PL/2026/2 — Letter from the Advisory Council Chair transmitting the Platform Fairness Standard to the chief executives of seven platforms

Letter from the Advisory Council Chair transmitting the Platform Fairness Standard to the chief executives of seven platforms

To the Assembly record

From Robert Nikic, Advisory Council Chair of Reseated Councils

Purpose of this letter

1.I submit this letter to the Assembly record to document the transmission of the Platform Fairness Standard, adopted by the Assembly on 13 August 2026, to the chief executives identified in this record. The Standard is RC/PL/2026/1. The Assembly’s adoption resolution is RC/PL/RES/2026/1. The seven individual letters transmitting the Standard are RC/PL/2026/3 through RC/PL/2026/9.

2.This covering letter records the decision, the basis for selecting the seven seats, the reporting method that will be used to track each seat, and the review period following delivery. It does not make a finding about any company or its conduct. It does not attribute a position to any recipient. The individual letters communicate the Assembly’s adopted text and invite each recipient to consider it. They are requests for engagement, not statements that a recipient has agreed, declined, or taken any other position.

3.The Assembly is a global assembly of small-business owners. Its work starts with reports from members, tests whether a reported problem forms a recurring pattern, develops a proposed response, consults publicly, and submits the resulting proposal to an Assembly ballot. Where the Assembly adopts a standard, letters may then be sent to executives with the authority to consider adopting it. This sequence is intended to keep the basis for a request visible: member evidence, a stated test, consultation, a recorded decision, and a traceable approach to the relevant decision-makers.

Adoption by the Assembly

4.On 13 August 2026, the Assembly adopted the Platform Fairness Standard by a vote of 86.4 per cent in favour, with 58 per cent turnout. The result records the Assembly’s decision under its process. It does not represent a vote by the companies receiving the letters, and it does not imply that every member holds the same view on every detail of the Standard.

5.The Standard addresses a defined set of platform decisions affecting business users: account suspension, listing removal, payout hold, and fee change. It asks that, before one of those actions is taken, a business receive written notice and a specific reason; have the matter reviewed by a person; and have a time limit applied to payout holds. It also asks for these protections to apply in every country in which the platform operates. These are the terms adopted by the Assembly. The letters transmit those terms without adding new requirements or changing their scope.

6.The Standard is designed as a common baseline for fair process. Its focus is notice, explanation, human review, a bounded period for withheld payouts, and consistency across countries. It does not tell a platform what commercial decision it must make in a particular case. It asks for safeguards around how a decision is communicated and reviewed, and for a clear limit on the duration of a payout hold. The

Assembly intends the text to be specific enough to be considered and discussed, rather than a general appeal for better treatment.

7.The concern addressed is relevant to a broad group of businesses. The United Nations reports that micro, small and medium-sized enterprises make up about 90 per cent of businesses worldwide, account for 60–70 per cent of employment, and contribute around half of global GDP.¹ The International Labour Organization separately describes MSMEs as accounting for around 70 per cent of employment worldwide, and estimates that about 80 per cent operate in the informal economy.² These global figures are context for the importance of workable business processes; they are not estimates of the number of businesses using any recipient’s services, and they do not establish any company-specific fact.

Selection of the seven seats

8.The seven recipients were selected as seats for engagement using three considerations: the scale of small-business sellers or business users connected to the platform or service; the role of the platform or service in controlling, processing, or facilitating payments to businesses; and the presence of the platform or service in many countries. The considerations were applied to identify a group of executives with a meaningful connection to the subject of the Standard and the capacity to consider it.

9.The selection is not a ranking of companies, a comparative assessment, or a conclusion that any recipient has acted improperly. It is not a list of every organization that could have a role in the issue. The seven seats form the first group to which the adopted Standard is being transmitted. The Assembly may consider additional seats through its continuing process. Inclusion means that a letter has been addressed to that executive for consideration; it does not mean that the Assembly has assessed or endorsed the recipient’s policies, products, or business model.

10.The three considerations are applied to the seat as a whole, rather than as allegations about an individual company. The Assembly is seeking practical engagement from people whose responsibilities may enable them to evaluate the requested standard. The letters do not presume that a chief executive can or will adopt the Standard alone, nor do they presume that a recipient has received, read, or agreed with it before delivery is confirmed. Any assessment of the recipient’s response will be based on the response itself, if one is received, and will be reported without speculation.

11.Each individual letter is addressed to the named chief executive and transmits the same Assembly-adopted Standard. The letters are separate records so that delivery, any reply, and any later endorsement can be tracked for each seat. The separate numbering is an administrative means of maintaining that record. It does not indicate a different standard or a different expectation for one recipient than for another.

Seat-status reporting

12.The Secretariat will report each seat using the status terms established for this process: Proposed, Letter sent, Delivered, Replied, Signed, and Empty chair. These labels are intended to describe

observable stages in the correspondence record. They are not grades, findings, or statements about motive. A seat may move from one status to another when the corresponding event is documented.

13.“Proposed” means that the seat has been identified for consideration in the engagement process. “Letter sent” means that the individual letter has been issued for dispatch. “Delivered” means that delivery has been confirmed through the available delivery record. “Replied” means that a response from the recipient or an authorized representative has been received. “Signed” means that the recipient has signed or otherwise formally endorsed the Standard in a manner the Assembly can record. “Empty chair” describes a seat for which no reply or signature has been recorded at the relevant reporting point. It is a status of the record, not a conclusion about the recipient’s reasons or intentions.

14.Status reporting will distinguish dispatch from delivery, and delivery from reply. A letter marked “Letter sent” will not be described as delivered until that stage is confirmed. A delivered letter will not be described as a reply. A reply will not be described as a signature unless it includes a formal endorsement that meets the “Signed” status. Where the record does not establish a status, the Secretariat will say so rather than infer it. The same reporting approach will apply to all seven seats.

15.An “Empty chair” entry must not be read as proof that a letter was ignored, that a recipient rejects the Standard, or that the recipient has no view. It will mean only that no reply or signature is on record at the reporting point. Conversely, receipt of a reply will not by itself be treated as agreement. The Secretariat will describe the procedural status and make the text of any reply available, leaving readers to assess its content.

Replies and the public record

16.Replies received in response to these letters will be published in full in the Assembly record. The purpose is to preserve the recipient’s own account of their position and to allow members and the public to read it directly. The Secretariat will not present an excerpt as if it were the complete reply, and will not replace a recipient’s words with an inferred position. If no reply is received, the record will report that fact through the applicable seat status and will not supply a statement on the recipient’s behalf.

17.Publication in full means the reply itself will be reproduced as received, with its authorship and date recorded where available. No statement will be attributed to a person or organization unless it appears in a reply or another verifiable public record relevant to the correspondence. The Assembly publishes replies only as received and never presents a paraphrase as a quotation. Any administrative note necessary to explain the record will be clearly distinguished from the recipient’s text.

18.This publication commitment applies regardless of whether a reply supports, questions, or declines to support the Standard. It is part of a neutral record of engagement, not a condition requiring a recipient to endorse the Assembly’s decision. Recipients may choose their own words and position. The Assembly’s responsibility is to transmit the adopted text accurately, keep the correspondence record clear, and report what has and has not occurred without embellishment.

Thirty-day review

19.A 30-day review will be conducted for each seat, counted from confirmed delivery of that recipient’s letter. The review is an Assembly reporting checkpoint, not a deadline imposed on a recipient and not a presumption that a response is required within 30 days. If delivery dates differ, each review will be calculated from the relevant confirmed date rather than from the date of this covering letter.

20.At the review point, the Secretariat will record the status then supported by the correspondence record: whether the letter was delivered, whether a reply was received, whether a formal signature or endorsement was recorded, or whether the seat remains an empty chair. The report will identify any uncertainty in the delivery record. If a reply arrives after the 30-day review, it will still be entered and published in full, and the status will be updated in the next applicable report. The review therefore provides a dated account, not a closure of the conversation.

21.The review will not assess a recipient’s motives, the adequacy of an explanation beyond what the reply says, or the recipient’s practices. It will report the evidence available to the Assembly about this engagement: the letter, its delivery record, any reply, and any formal endorsement. Where the record contains no information beyond the absence of a reply or signature, the report will say no more than that.

Record of transmission

22.The individual letters RC/PL/2026/3 to RC/PL/2026/9 accompany this covering record. Each transmits RC/PL/2026/1 and identifies the Assembly decision by which the Standard was adopted. The Secretariat is asked to maintain the seven seat records separately and to report their status under the terms set out above. The Assembly may then review the engagement on the basis of the documented record, not assumptions about private communications or unrecorded positions.

Notes and sources

1. United Nations, Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day: https://www.un.org/en/observances/micro-small-medium-businesses-day ↩
2. International Labour Organization, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises: https://www.ilo.org/topics-and-sectors/micro-small-and-medium-enterprises ↩

Sources

1. United Nations — Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day
2. International Labour Organization — Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises