Summary record of Open Table 8 (two sittings)

1. Date, sittings and attendance

1.Open Table 8 was held on Saturday, 26 September 2026, in two sittings: the Asia-Pacific sitting from 06:00 to 07:30 UTC and the Europe/Africa/Americas sitting from 16:00 to 17:30 UTC. Robert Nikic, Advisory Council Chair, presided in both sittings.

2.The sitting-specific attendance register was not included in the Secretariat record available for publication. Accordingly, no attendance total or sitting-specific country count is stated here. As of 26 September, the Assembly had 1,606 seated members in 49 countries. Members had filed 4,916 reports from 50 countries. These are Assembly-wide figures, not attendance figures for either sitting.

2. Agenda

1. Opening and confirmation of the purpose of the Open Table.
2. Review of the Assembly’s current work and reporting totals.
3. Discussion of the Platform Fairness Standard, its adoption and the status of CEO seats.
4. Discussion of the Cashflow Council’s 15-Day Pay Standard and the close of consultation.
5. Updates from the Fair Play, Trade, Resilience, Red Tape and Team Councils.
6. Member observations, actions and the next Open Table.

3. Proceedings

3.The Chair opened each sitting by describing the Open Table as a place for members to compare reported practices and identify questions for council work. He recalled that councils describe practices rather than make findings against individual companies. Members were asked not to identify their own businesses or to name a company when recounting an allegation. The Chair noted that reports are assessed through the five-part pattern test—Volume, Frequency, Consistency, Spread and Corroboration—before a draft fix proceeds to consultation and ballot.

4.In the Asia-Pacific sitting, Mei Lin Tan of Singapore said that the sequence was important to members who wanted a route from an individual report to a public standard without treating one person’s experience as proof of a general practice. She asked that Open Table summaries distinguish clearly between a reported concern, a council’s pattern-test status and an Assembly decision. The Chair agreed that the Secretariat would preserve those distinctions in the record.

5.In the Europe/Africa/Americas sitting, Thandiwe Moyo of Harare, Zimbabwe, said that members needed concise explanations of what was open for comment, what was under ballot and what had already been adopted. She observed that a member reading an update after several weeks should be able to identify the next step without relying on informal messages. The Chair noted the request and asked council officers to keep consultation and ballot dates visible in public notices.

6.The Secretariat reported the Assembly-wide totals as at 26 September: 1,606 members in 49 countries and 4,916 reports filed from 50 countries. The council totals were recorded as follows: Platform, 1,911; Cashflow, 1,284; Fair Play, 590; Trade, 434; Resilience, 274; Red Tape, 269; and Team, 154. The Chair clarified that the total number of reports and the number of reporting countries are not measures of meeting attendance.

7.The Chair referred to the international context for the Assembly’s work. Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises account for about 90 per cent of businesses, 60–70 per cent of employment and about half of global gross domestic product, according to the United Nations.¹ Members were reminded that these global figures describe the importance of the sector; they do not, by themselves, establish any particular council pattern.

8.On the Platform Council, the Chair reported that the Assembly had adopted the Platform Fairness Standard on 13 August 2026 as RC/PL/2026/1. The standard calls for written notice, a specific reason, review by a person and a time limit on payout holds before account suspension, listing removal, payout hold or fee change, with the same protections in every country in which a platform operates. The adoption vote was 86.4 per cent in favour, with 58 per cent turnout. Letters to seven CEO seats were issued on 20 August and delivered between 24 and 26 August. No replies were on record as of the date of this Open Table.

9.Amina Yusuf of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, said that the standard’s insistence on a specific reason and human review addressed the practical difficulty of deciding what to correct when a seller receives only a general notice. She asked whether implementation discussions would distinguish a notice that explains a decision from a message that merely confirms that a decision has occurred. The Chair confirmed that the adopted text should be read as requiring a reason and review, not only a notification of outcome. He added that the Assembly had not received replies from the CEO seats and would not imply otherwise.

10.In the second sitting, Daniel Okafor of Accra, Ghana, said that members often need a clear record of when a payout hold begins and when it is due for review. He asked that the time-limit element remain visible in explanations of the standard. The Chair noted that payout holds are expressly included in the adopted ask and that the standard

applies across the countries in which the platform operates. Members did not propose reopening or amending the adopted text.

11.The Chair noted that existing European rules include requirements for statements of reasons when a platform restricts or suspends a business user, and that the Digital Services Act provides for statements of reasons in relevant cases, including whether automated means were used.²³ These references were offered as cases of existing regulatory approaches, not as a determination that every element of the Assembly standard is already required in every jurisdiction.

12.On Cashflow, the Chair reported that the consultation on CF-001, the proposed 15-Day Pay Standard, had closed on 24 September after receiving 362 comments. 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. No adoption ballot had opened by 26 September. The Chair emphasized that closing a consultation is not an adoption decision and that the comments remained part of the council’s work toward a final proposal.

13.Priya Nair of Bengaluru, India, said that a published payment-time figure would be most useful if buyers explained how it was calculated and if the reporting period were clear. She asked that the council consider whether a headline average alone could obscure late invoices. The Chair recorded this as a consultation issue for the Cashflow Council and did not present it as an agreed amendment.

14.In the Europe/Africa/Americas sitting, Luca Bianchi of Bologna, Italy, said that small suppliers may have little practical leverage when an invoice is disputed after work has been completed. He asked that the phrase “undisputed invoice” be explained in plain language in any final text. The Chair referred the question to the Cashflow Council for consideration of the consultation record. He noted that the United Kingdom’s Late Payments Bill had been introduced in the House of Lords on 19 May 2026 and that the Assembly’s

proposed 15-day period is a distinct standard, not a description of the Bill’s provisions.⁴

15.The Chair reported that FP-001, the proposed Business Fraud Standard, had passed the pattern test on 8 September. Its consultation was scheduled to open on 13 October and close on 12 November 2026. Accordingly, no consultation comments or ballot result were reported at this meeting. He summarized the proposal as calling for payee-name verification, rapid recall of fraud payments and reimbursement for small businesses affected by authorised push-payment or business email compromise fraud, including cross-border cases.

16.Farah Al-Mansouri of Amman, Jordan, said that members should be able to distinguish the Fair Play Council’s proposed standard from existing protections with narrower eligibility or territorial scope. The Chair noted that the council’s proposal expressly includes cross-border cases, while existing schemes may not. He referred to the United Kingdom reimbursement framework as one case with defined eligibility and exclusions, and emphasized that it did not establish a universal cross-border entitlement.⁵

17.On Trade, the Chair reported that TR-001 had passed the pattern test on 20 October? No. The Chair clarified that the relevant date was not yet reached as of this meeting: the Trade Council had not passed the pattern test by 26 September. Members were advised that the council remained at an earlier evidence-gathering stage. This clarification was entered to prevent a future milestone from being mistaken for a completed action.

18.The Chair then reported the actual status of the other councils. The Trade Council’s TR-001 had not yet passed its pattern test as of 26 September. The Resilience Council’s RS-001 had passed four of five tests, with corroboration pending. The Red Tape Council’s RT-001 had passed three of five tests, and the Team Council’s TM-001 had passed two of five. No

draft, consultation, adoption or ballot stage beyond those statuses was announced in this record.

19.In the Asia-Pacific sitting, Siti Rahman of Jakarta, Indonesia, asked that the Resilience Council’s incomplete corroboration status be stated plainly in future updates, so that a four-of-five result would not be understood as a completed test. The Chair agreed that “corroboration pending” would remain explicit. In the second sitting, Beatrice Kamau of Nairobi, Kenya, asked that the early-stage status of Red Tape and Team work be communicated without implying that draft standards were imminent. The Chair confirmed that no such timetable was being set at this Open Table.

20.The Chair noted that the Assembly’s process remains reports, pattern test, draft fix, public consultation, Assembly ballot and letters to CEOs who can adopt a standard. CEO seats are tracked as Proposed, Letter sent, Delivered, Replied, Signed or Empty chair. Members were reminded that the status of a seat must reflect the record: delivery does not constitute a reply, and a reply does not constitute adoption or signature.

21.Members in both sittings asked for public updates to remain short enough to use while preserving exact dates and stages. The Chair said that the Secretariat would use the published council status and the exact data available at the date of each document. He reiterated that members remain anonymous unless they choose a public seat, and that the minutes would identify speakers only by their names and locations as presented for this record, without linking them to businesses.

4. Decisions and action items

22.The Open Table made no Assembly decision, did not amend an adopted standard and did not open or close a ballot. The meeting recorded the following actions:

1. Secretariat: preserve the distinction between assembly-wide membership and report totals and sitting-specific attendance in future records; do not publish an attendance count unless supported by the relevant register.

2. Secretariat: keep the stages and dates for adopted standards, consultations and ballots visible in public updates.

3. Cashflow Council: consider the consultation questions on publication periods, payment-time calculations and plain-language explanation of “undisputed invoice” when preparing the next stage of CF-001.

4. Fair Play Council: prepare the announced FP-001 consultation materials for the 13 October–12 November consultation period, distinguishing the proposal from existing schemes and their limits.

5. All councils: state pattern-test results and pending elements exactly, including the Resilience Council’s pending corroboration and the current stages of Red Tape and Team work.

5. Next session and certification

23.Open Tables are held monthly. The next Open Table was anticipated in October 2026; a specific date was not fixed in the record of this session. The Secretariat was to issue notice when the date and sitting times were confirmed.

Sources

1. United Nations, Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day. https://www.un.org/en/observances/micro-small-medium-businesses-day
2. Regulation (EU) 2019/1150, Article 4. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2019/1150/oj/eng
3. European Commission, Digital Services Act Transparency Database: questions and answers. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/faqs/dsa-transparency-database-questions-and-answers
4. UK Small Business Commissioner, Late Payments Bill: what it could mean for your business. https://www.smallbusinesscommissioner.gov.uk/late-payments-bill-what-it-could-mean-for-your-business/
5. UK Payment Systems Regulator, APP fraud reimbursement protections. https://www.psr.org.uk/information-for-consumers/app-fraud-reimbursement-protections/

Notes and sources

Sources

1. United Nations, Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day
2. Regulation (EU) 2019/1150, Article 4
3. European Commission, Digital Services Act Transparency Database: questions and answers
4. UK Small Business Commissioner, Late Payments Bill: what it could mean for your business
5. UK Payment Systems Regulator, APP fraud reimbursement protections