A month of rules, evidence and listening

RC/PL/2026/CL.2
Chair’s monthly letter to members
27 March 2026

Dear members,

March has been a month of turning a young assembly into a working one. We have put rules around how we make decisions, continued to gather evidence, and begun to show how individual reports can reveal a pattern that no single member could establish alone. None of this fixes a delayed payment or restores a suspended account by itself. It does give us a fairer, more disciplined way to decide what needs fixing and what we should ask decision-makers to change.

On 3 March, the Secretariat issued its statement on the World Bank’s B-READY 2025 findings. On 16 March, the Platform Council published an open letter to every seller who got the email at 2 a.m. The next day, we issued our first Platform Council evidence submission. On 19 March, members adopted the Rules of Procedure, RC/A/2026/2, by ballot. The first Fellows joined the Assembly that day. On 24 March, the UK government published its response to the late-payment consultation. Each item is different; together, they mark a month in which evidence, procedure and public policy have all been part of our work.

What the numbers say

As of today, 302 members are seated in 47 countries. We have received 675 reports from 49 countries. The Platform Council accounts for 443 reports; Cashflow, 160; Fair Play, 30; Red Tape, 23; Trade, 11; and Team, 8. These are not interchangeable problems, and we should not treat them as if they were. But their volume gives us a starting point for asking which experiences are repeated and where.

The Platform Council has 87 members in 33 countries. Its 443 reports come from 47 countries. The median amount at stake is about US$4,180. Of the reports, 203 describe funds being held and 240 describe an account suspension. In the past 30 days alone, 322 Platform Council reports were filed. That pace tells us that this is not a distant or occasional concern for the members who are living through it.

Our reports also come from businesses of different sizes: 35% are from owners working alone, 45% from teams of two to nine, 16% from teams of 10 to 49, and 4% from teams of 50 to 249. A rule that works only for a large firm with a legal department is not a fair rule for the businesses represented here.

One account, and the pattern behind it

One anonymous member described finding that their marketplace account had been suspended while a payout was still pending. They had orders to complete and suppliers to pay. The notice did not identify a particular listing or transaction, and the member could not tell what evidence would answer the platform’s concern. They submitted a review request, but had no clear way to know who would examine it or when the held money might be released.

I am sharing the account without a name, business or identifying details. It is one report, not proof about any one company. Its importance is in how it connects to the wider record: many members report account suspensions or held funds, and the same practical questions recur. What, specifically, is the reason? Can a person review the decision? How long can money remain unavailable? Those questions are why we test reports for volume, frequency, consistency, spread and corroboration before proposing a fix.

A notice is not meaningful if it tells a small business only that something went wrong. It needs to say what happened, what can be done next, and when the business can expect a decision.

What we learned this month

First, a large count does not relieve us of the duty to be precise. The fact that a member reports a suspension does not, by itself, establish why it happened or whether the process was fair. We need specific, comparable accounts, and we need to keep the difference clear between a member’s experience and a finding by the Assembly.

Second, process matters. The Rules of Procedure are not paperwork around the work; they are part of the work. Members need to know how an issue reaches a ballot, how a decision is made, and how those who disagree can take part. The adoption of RC/A/2026/2 gives us a common framework. We will be judged by whether we apply it consistently.

Third, geography and scale matter. Reports have come from many countries, and most Platform Council reporters run very small teams. A protection that exists only in one market, or is usable only by a business with spare staff and specialist advice, will not meet the need we are documenting.

What comes next

In April, we will hold the next monthly Open Table, with sittings for members across regions. We will keep reviewing reports against the five-part pattern test and invite members to add detail where it can help establish what happened and what remedy was available. If you share an account, please avoid posting confidential customer information or details that could identify another person.

Our next steps are evidence first, then a draft fix that members can examine and challenge. We will not announce a ballot date until the relevant work is ready and members have had a fair chance to take part. The Rules of Procedure now give us the common route for that work. If you have a report, a correction to the figures, or a different interpretation of what the evidence shows, please bring it forward.

Thank you to Ana in Cebu, Luis in Puebla, Sara in Amman and Daniel in Bristol for making time to contribute this month. Thank you as well to every member who filed a report, read a draft, joined a discussion or helped another owner find their way into the Assembly. The work is stronger when members disagree carefully and stay with the evidence.