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Founders Assembly
Summary record of Open Table 7 (two sittings)
Sittings: Asia-Pacific, 06:00 UTC; Europe/Africa/Americas, 16:00 UTC
Assembly-wide membership: 1,403 members in 49 countries.
Agenda
- Opening and purpose of Open Table 7.
- Report on adoption and initial implementation of the Platform Fairness Standard, RC/PL/2026/1.
- Member experience of account restrictions, listing removals, payout holds and fee changes.
- Opening of the Cashflow Council consultation on draft standard RC/CF/2026/L.1.
- Evidence handling, follow-up responsibilities and the next Open Table.
Summary of proceedings
Robert Nikic opened both sittings as Advisory Council Chair. He stated that Open Table was a forum for comparing reported practices, identifying questions for council work and explaining the status of proposals. It was not a decision-making session and could not amend a standard adopted by the Assembly. He invited members to describe the sequence of events they had encountered, rather than identify their own businesses or make unsupported claims about a particular company.
The chair noted that the Founders Assembly had 1,403 seated members in 49 countries as of 26 August. The Secretariat’s internal report total at that date was 4,199 reports from 50 countries. The reports were distributed across the councils as follows: Platform, 1,794; Cashflow, 1,112; Fair Play, 467; Trade, 315; Red Tape, 220; Resilience, 172; and Team, 119. The chair cautioned that reports and members were separate measures and that the figures did not establish that every report was independently corroborated.
The chair reviewed the Assembly’s decision of 13 August adopting the Platform Fairness Standard, RC/PL/2026/1, by 86.4 per cent in favour, with 58 per cent turnout. The standard asks platforms, before an account suspension, listing removal, payout hold or fee change, to provide written notice, a specific reason, review by a person and a time limit for payout holds, with the same protections in every country where the platform operates. The chair emphasized that members were discussing the adopted text and its application; no amendment was before the Open Table.
On the status of follow-up, the chair stated that letters had been sent on 20 August to the seven chief executive seats identified in RC/PL/2026/2 and had been delivered between 24 and 26 August. No reply was recorded at the time of the sittings. He said the status would continue to be tracked by seat, using the established stages of proposed, letter sent, delivered, replied, signed and empty chair. The record did not treat delivery as agreement or imply that any recipient had responded.
In the Asia-Pacific sitting, Mei Lin Tan of Singapore described a sequence in which a seller first noticed a decline in account activity, then found a restriction notice in a dashboard, and could not tell which specific listing or transaction had triggered it. She said that the difference between receiving a message and receiving an actionable reason mattered: a notice that only identified a broad policy category did not, in her view, tell a small operator what record to correct or what evidence to provide. She asked the Platform Council to keep the reason requirement concrete and usable.
Arjun Rao of Bengaluru, India, discussed payout holds. He said that a hold could affect a small operator’s ability to meet supplier and payroll commitments even when the underlying sales had already taken place. He asked that the standard distinguish the explanation for a hold from its duration, and that any review process say when a person would examine the case. He did not propose a new deadline at the Open Table; he asked the council to test whether members could identify when a hold began, who could review it and what event would end it.
Rina Sato of Osaka, Japan, raised the difficulty of comparing protections across jurisdictions. She observed that a business working across borders might encounter a local rule on disclosure alongside a platform process that appeared different in another market. The chair noted that the EU Platform-to-Business Regulation requires a statement of reasons in specified cases of restriction or suspension, while the Japanese framework for designated digital platforms requires disclosure of matters including conditions for withholding payments.1 He said those cases were relevant context, not a substitute for members’ evidence about the operation of a particular practice.
Lucía Fernández of Valencia, Spain, spoke about notices that arrived after a business had already lost access to a listing or service. She asked whether the standard’s word before should remain prominent in member-facing explanations, since a later explanation may help with review but does not provide advance notice. She also asked that members distinguish a suspension of an account from removal of one listing, because the practical scope of the restriction could differ. The chair recorded the point as a request for clear implementation guidance, not a change to the adopted standard.
In the Europe/Africa/Americas sitting, Amina Okafor of Lagos, Nigeria, described having to assemble records from several sources after a payment was held. She said that the work of finding transaction references, customer messages and platform notices could itself consume time needed to run the business. She asked that the standard’s written-reason requirement be assessed for whether it gives a small operator enough information to begin a review, including a usable case reference and an explanation of the next step. She did not ask the Assembly to prescribe a particular technical format.
Mateo Alvarez of Bogotá, Colombia, discussed the importance of a human review that is meaningfully distinct from an automated notice. He asked the Platform Council to examine whether a member can tell that a person considered the material submitted, rather than merely receiving a further system-generated status. The chair noted that the EU Digital Services Act includes requirements for statements of reasons in relevant moderation decisions and information about whether automated means were used.2 He cautioned that the discussion was not a legal interpretation of that Act or a finding about any platform.
Grace Mensah of Accra, Ghana, asked how the standard should be explained to a small business that works through an intermediary or uses more than one account. She said that a notice could be technically delivered yet difficult to locate when it was sent to an inactive address or a dashboard not checked daily. She requested that any later guidance describe the point at which notice is considered received, while keeping the Assembly’s adopted requirement of written notice intact. The chair recorded this as an implementation question for the Platform Council.
In both sittings, members noted that fee changes and payout holds should not be collapsed into one issue. A fee change may affect the economics of future transactions, while a hold may prevent access to funds already earned. Members asked that evidence submissions identify the event, the notice given, the reason stated, the review offered and the period before the issue was resolved, where those facts were available. The chair reminded participants not to infer motive from an adverse decision and not to include confidential customer or employee information in public evidence.
The chair summarized the five-part pattern test used by the Assembly: Volume, Frequency, Consistency, Spread and Corroboration. He asked members to submit evidence that could help the Platform Council assess whether reported problems were repeated and comparable, rather than relying on the force of an individual account. Members were encouraged to state what they could not verify as well as what they could. Reports would be reviewed through the council process; the Open Table itself did not certify the truth of an individual allegation.
The Cashflow Council item concerned draft RC/CF/2026/L.1, the proposed 15-Day Pay Standard. The chair stated that its consultation had opened on 25 August and was scheduled to close on 24 September. The draft asks large buyers to pay small suppliers within 15 days of an undisputed invoice, apply automatic interest when payment is late and publish payment times. The chair stressed that the draft remained under consultation and had not been adopted by the Assembly.
In the Asia-Pacific sitting, Kiran Patel of Ahmedabad, India, described the difference between an invoice being received and being accepted as undisputed. He asked that the draft make the start of the payment period clear and discourage an open-ended administrative process in which a buyer’s silence leaves a supplier unable to tell whether the invoice is being challenged. He asked members submitting evidence to record invoice date, receipt or acknowledgement, any stated dispute and payment date where they had access to those records. The chair said that the council would consider the evidence under the consultation procedure.
Nur Aisyah Rahman of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, raised the effect of several small administrative requirements on payment timing. She said that a missing reference or a request to resubmit a document could restart a process without a clear explanation of what remained outstanding. She asked the Cashflow Council to consider whether the draft should distinguish a genuine dispute about an invoice from a correctable processing issue. The chair noted the distinction for the consultation record and reminded participants that they could comment directly on the draft during the open period.
In the Europe/Africa/Americas sitting, Daniel Mokoena of Johannesburg, South Africa, said that publishing payment times could help suppliers assess terms before accepting work, provided the published measure was understandable and comparable. He asked the council to state how a buyer should describe the period being measured and how exceptions would be shown. The chair said that the consultation was the appropriate place to propose wording or measurement approaches and that no measurement method had been settled by the Open Table.
Élodie Martin of Lyon, France, referred to the distinction between a proposed Assembly standard and existing legal requirements. The chair noted, as background, that the EU has considered a proposed late-payment regulation with a 30-day cap, while the legislative process remained blocked in the Council according to the cited Parliament material.3 He stated that members should not present the proposed 15-day standard as current law. The purpose of the discussion was to gather evidence about the practice and assess a voluntary standard through the Assembly’s stated process.
In both sittings, members asked that evidence about payment practices include the supplier’s size where known, whether the buyer was a large organization, and whether the invoice amount or scope was disputed. The chair said that members should not disclose commercially sensitive information in an open submission without considering the risks. Where an account could not be documented, the report should say so. Council reviewers would assess volume, frequency, consistency, spread and corroboration before recommending a draft or revision.
Members also discussed how Open Table comments would relate to formal consultation. The chair clarified that statements made during the sitting would be summarized in these minutes but would not automatically be entered as a formal comment on RC/CF/2026/L.1. Members wishing to address the draft were asked to use the consultation channel. The Secretariat would preserve the distinction between meeting minutes, evidence reports and consultation submissions so that each could be assessed for its proper purpose.
No Assembly ballot was held at either sitting. No new standard was adopted, no change was made to RC/PL/2026/1, and no conclusion was reached on the merits of an individual platform or buyer. The chair recorded the sessions as exchanges of member experience and procedural guidance. The only current adoption matter identified on the agenda was the Platform Fairness Standard already adopted on 13 August; the Cashflow draft remained in consultation.
At the close of the Asia-Pacific sitting, the chair invited participants to continue providing reports through the relevant council channels and to keep personal and business identifiers out of public-facing accounts. He said that the Secretariat would publish the summary record and that the Platform Council would receive the questions concerning notice, review, payout-hold duration and cross-country consistency. Members were asked to label observations as proposals or questions where they were not reporting an established fact.
At the close of the Europe/Africa/Americas sitting, the chair restated the CF-001 consultation closing date of 24 September and invited members to submit comments before that deadline. He said the consultation record would inform the council’s consideration of the draft but would not predetermine the Assembly ballot. The chair thanked members for providing geographically varied cases and reiterated that no business names were required for participation.
Conclusions and action items
Platform Council: receive the questions raised about the practical meaning of prior written notice, the specificity of reasons, human review, payout-hold time limits and consistent protection across operating countries. These questions are for council consideration; they do not alter the adopted standard.
Cashflow Council: continue the RC/CF/2026/L.1 public consultation through 24 September 2026, considering comments on when the 15-day period begins, how invoice disputes are identified, how processing issues are treated and how payment times may be published.
Secretariat: publish this summary record and maintain separate records for Open Table minutes, council reports and formal consultation submissions. Track the Platform Council CEO seats by their recorded delivery and response status, without recording a reply unless one is received.
Members: submit evidence through the relevant council channels, use the five-part pattern test as a guide to useful detail, and avoid naming their own businesses or making unsupported claims about named companies.
Next session
The next Open Table is scheduled for September 2026, as part of the Assembly’s monthly Open Table series.
Sources
United Nations, Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day.4
European Union, Regulation (EU) 2019/1150, Article 4.1
European Commission, Digital Services Act Transparency Database: questions and answers.2
European Parliament, Legislative Train, revision of the Late Payment Directive.3
Notes and sources
Sources
This document has no standing until adopted under the Founders Charter. Reseated Councils is not affiliated with the United Nations.