Summary record of Fellows roundtable 5

Meeting details

Agenda

1. Role of the Fellows and the boundary between advice and Assembly decision-making.
2. Review of the revised Platform Fairness Standard following public consultation.
3. Preparation of the Cashflow Council draft standard.
4. Evidence quality, member anonymity and cross-council working practices.
5. Actions and the next session.

Summary of proceedings

1. Opening and purpose. Robert Nikic opened the two sittings and stated that the roundtable was a place for Fellows to examine implementation questions and identify gaps in the record, not a substitute for a Council recommendation or an Assembly ballot. He recalled that the Rules of Procedure, adopted by the Assembly on 19 March, govern the formal process. The process remains reports, a five-part pattern test, a draft fix, public consultation, an Assembly ballot and letters to the chief executives able to adopt the standard. He said the purpose of the fifth roundtable was to test whether members could explain that sequence plainly and whether the draft proposals were understandable to a small business facing the problem in practice.

2. Fellows’ role. Amina Yusuf of Lagos, Nigeria, said a Fellow’s contribution should be to identify where a proposal is unclear or difficult to apply, rather than to present a personal experience as proof that an entire sector behaves in the same way. She recommended that meeting notes separate three things: what a member reported, what the evidence shows across reports, and what a proposed standard would require. Robert Nikic agreed that this distinction should be visible in Council papers. He added that members may participate anonymously and that no member’s business should be named in a report unless the member has expressly chosen a public seat. The chair confirmed that this roundtable had no authority to approve a standard or speak for a CEO.

3. Platform consultation and revision. Mei Lin of Singapore said the Platform Council’s consultation had raised a practical concern: written notice alone would not be useful if it failed to state what action a seller could take next. She supported language requiring a specific reason, a route to human review and a clear time limit on payout holds. She said the same basic protections should apply across the countries in which a platform operates. The Platform Council’s consultation on draft RC/PL/2026/L.1 had closed on 2 July with 487 comments. The Council was preparing a revised version, not a final standard. The chair noted that the later Assembly ballot would be the point at which members decide whether to adopt the standard; the consultation record itself did not settle that question.

4. Practical operation of review. Elena Petrova of Sofia, Bulgaria, described the difficulty of responding to a generic notice when a listing is removed and the seller cannot tell which transaction or rule is in question. She argued that a notice should identify the affected account or listing, give a sufficiently particular reason, and explain how to request review. If the platform relies on an automated step, the process should make that intelligible without requiring a seller to understand internal technical systems. She did not ask that a platform disclose information that would expose another user or compromise a legitimate fraud investigation. The discussion recorded the distinction between a meaningful reason and unrestricted access to internal records. Fellows asked the Platform Council to consider whether its draft could express that distinction in plain language.

5. Consistency across jurisdictions. Haruto Sato of Osaka, Japan, observed that a seller operating across borders may encounter different procedures for similar account restrictions. He said that jurisdiction-specific legal requirements must be respected, but a business should not lose the basic ability to understand a restriction or seek review simply because its account is handled in another market. The chair noted that existing frameworks provide relevant cases, including the EU Platform-to-Business Regulation’s requirement for statements of reasons in specified cases and Japan’s rules for designated digital platforms, including disclosure of conditions concerning payment withholding.¹² He cautioned that the proposed standard was an Assembly proposal, not a claim that one legal regime already applies everywhere. Fellows agreed that explanatory materials should distinguish the proposal from binding law.

6. Cashflow Council work. Kwame Mensah of Accra, Ghana, said that a short payment target would be easier to understand if it applied to an undisputed invoice and was paired with a consequence for late payment. He also supported publication of payment-time information, provided buyers reported it in a way that allowed comparison and did not obscure the treatment of disputed invoices. The Cashflow Council had passed its five-part pattern test on 23 June and was preparing the first draft of its proposed 15-Day Pay Standard. That draft was due to be considered by the Council on 21 July; it was not yet open for consultation. Robert Nikic emphasized that the roundtable should not pre-judge the draft. Fellows advised that the text should define the starting point for the payment period and explain how a genuine dispute is distinguished from a delay in processing.

7. Payment rules and proportionality. Priya Nair of Bengaluru, India, said that a payment standard should recognise that legal systems already use different time limits and remedies. The draft should therefore state its requested common practice clearly without suggesting that existing statutory protections are identical. The chair referred to the UK Late Payments Bill, introduced in the House of Lords in May, and to the UK government’s consultation response as cases of current policy attention to late payment. He also noted that India’s statutory framework has its own deadlines and consequences for payments to micro and small enterprises.³⁴ Fellows agreed that cases of national law could help explain the issue, but should not be used to imply that every member is covered by those laws or that a proposed Assembly standard has legal force.

8. Evidence and the five-part test. Lucia Bianchi of Bologna, Italy, asked how the Assembly could show that it was not turning a small number of vivid reports into a sector-wide conclusion. Robert Nikic restated the five-part pattern test: Volume, Frequency, Consistency, Spread and Corroboration. He said each part should be addressed before a draft fix is presented for consultation. A report may identify a problem, but it does not by itself establish prevalence; corroboration should be described in the form available and its limits stated. The July membership and reporting figures provide the scale of the Assembly’s record at that date: 1,163 members in 49 countries, with 3,307 reports filed from 50 countries. The chair said those totals should not be presented as proof that each report is independently verified or that every country has the same experience. Fellows endorsed retaining those qualifications in public summaries.

9. Member privacy and narrative. Fatima Al-Hassan of Amman, Jordan, said that members may be willing to share a useful account but may fear losing access to a platform, buyer or payment service if identifiable details are published. She asked that cases use neutral descriptions such as “a large marketplace” or “a payment provider,” and omit the name of the member’s own business. The chair confirmed that this was consistent with the Assembly’s writing practice. Where a public seat is chosen, the member’s choice should be explicit; otherwise, anonymity remains the default. Fellows also recommended that Secretariat staff check narrative cases for details that could identify a member indirectly, including unusual location, timing or transaction descriptions. This was recorded as a safeguard for publication, not as a restriction on the confidential evidence-gathering process.

10. Consultation design and accessibility. Diego Ramírez of Bogotá, Colombia, said that public consultation should tell participants what kind of response is useful and how the Council will handle disagreement. He recommended a short summary of the proposed obligation, a separate explanation of supporting evidence and a clear closing date. He also urged the Councils to avoid assuming that a small business has legal or compliance staff available to interpret a long draft. Robert Nikic said that consultation is a distinct stage between draft and ballot: comments should inform revisions, while the Council remains responsible for presenting a coherent proposal to the Assembly. Fellows asked that future consultation summaries identify recurring themes, material disagreement and changes made in response, without attributing comments to members unless they had chosen to be identified.

11. Decisions. The chair summarized the conclusions. First, Fellows’ advice is advisory and does not replace a Council’s work or an Assembly ballot. Second, the revised Platform Fairness Standard should preserve the core request for written notice, a specific reason, human review and a time limit on payout holds, while making the route to review understandable. Third, Cashflow Council drafting should clarify the invoice trigger and treatment of genuine disputes, without presenting the draft as adopted or as a statement of existing law. Fourth, future evidence summaries should distinguish member reports, pattern-test findings and proposed remedies. Fifth, published member cases should not name a member’s business and should be checked for indirect identifiers. No standard was adopted at the roundtable, and no decision was made on behalf of any platform, buyer or payment provider.

12. Action items. The Secretariat will prepare a short note for Council editors on separating reports, findings and proposed fixes, and circulate it before the next session. The Platform Council will review whether its revised draft clearly explains the minimum information in a notice and the route to human review; this remains Council work and does not predetermine the Assembly ballot. The Cashflow Council will consider the Fellows’ drafting questions when preparing RC/CF/2026/L.1, including the invoice start point and the treatment of disputes. Secretariat publication staff will add an indirect-identification check to the review of member stories. Fellows wishing to submit further implementation observations may do so through the relevant Council process; the roundtable will not create a separate evidence channel or bypass consultation.

13. Next session and close. The chair stated that the next Fellows roundtable would be held on 20 August 2026, with sittings at 06:00 UTC and 16:00 UTC. The proposed focus would be the treatment of consultation comments and the distinction between adoption by the Assembly and subsequent letters to chief executives. Robert Nikic closed the proceedings by thanking members for keeping the discussion tied to practical, repeatable procedures and for observing the confidentiality of member accounts. The meeting ended without a vote.

Sources

1. Regulation (EU) 2019/1150, Article 4. ¹

2. Japan Act on Improving Transparency and Fairness of Specified Digital Platforms. ²

3. UK Late Payments Bill: what it could mean for your business. ³

4. UK government response to the late-payment consultation. ⁴

Notes and sources

Sources

1. Regulation (EU) 2019/1150, Article 4
2. Japan Act on Improving Transparency and Fairness of Specified Digital Platforms
3. UK Late Payments Bill: what it could mean for your business
4. Late payment consultation: time to pay up — government response