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Platform Council
A Letter from the Table: A Regional View from Utrecht
To the Platform Council
I write from Utrecht, where the businesses I know are not large enough to keep a specialist on call when an online platform changes the conditions of their work. The same person may handle customer messages, invoices, stock and the weekly visit to the bookkeeper. When access to an account or to money is interrupted, there is often no separate department to absorb the uncertainty.
One owner in my circle described an episode that began on 12 January 2026. A platform restricted the owner’s account and held €1,860 that had been expected in the next payout. The notice said the account needed review, but did not identify the transaction or conduct at issue. Some listings became unavailable. The owner could still sign in, but could not tell whether the restriction was temporary, whether more information was required, or when the held money might be released.
On 14 January, the owner used the platform’s support form and supplied the requested identity and account documents. The response confirmed receipt, but gave no named contact or estimate for the review. On 19 January, the owner submitted the documents again through a different support route, worried that the first submission had not reached the right team. The payout remained unavailable. The owner postponed a planned payment to a supplier and rearranged other outgoings. Those are ordinary decisions in a small business; they become difficult when the amount and timing of a hold are unknown.
The owner checked the business records with a bookkeeper and looked at the relevant European rules. Article 4 of the EU Platform-to-Business Regulation requires a provider, when restricting or suspending a business user, to give a statement of reasons at the latest when the restriction takes effect. It also sets a 30-day notice period for termination of the whole service, subject to exceptions. That is important protection. But it does not itself promise that a payout hold will end by a particular date, nor does a
notice saying only that an account is “under review” help a business understand what it must answer.
This is where a regional view matters. In the Netherlands, a small business may have a bookkeeper and access to the Chamber of Commerce, but neither can see a platform’s internal case file or make its review move faster. The EU rule gives a common legal starting point; owners still experience the practical process through the language, support channels and decisions of the platform. Across the owners I speak with, the repeated difficulty is not simply that a platform can take action. It is that the person affected cannot identify the issue, reach a meaningful review, or plan around the length of the interruption.
I ask the Council to amend PL-001 so its protections distinguish clearly between account restrictions and money being withheld. A notice should identify the affected account, listing or payout; state the specific reason in terms the business can act on; say what information is needed and how to submit it; and give a reference number and a date for the next update. Where money is held, the notice should state the amount, the basis for the hold, and the expected review or release date. If that date changes, the platform should explain why and provide a new one.
I also ask that “review by a person” mean a person who can consider the documents and the circumstances, not only repeat a standard message. The business should have a clear route to request that review and should receive confirmation when it is complete. These steps would not prevent a platform from acting to protect customers or comply with law. They would make the action intelligible and give the business a fair chance to respond. A time limit, with a reasoned exception where a longer hold is genuinely necessary, would let owners distinguish a short check from an open-ended loss of working capital.
My position is amend. PL-001 should keep its central promise of written notice, a specific reason and human review, while adding practical requirements for payout holds and next steps. At the evidence-gathering stage, I hope the Council will treat this not as a request for special treatment, but as a minimum standard for a business to know what has happened to its account and money.
As of 8 March, the Platform Council’s records include 235 reports from 39 countries. That count cannot tell us every cause or outcome, but it shows why a rule should be usable across borders and not depend on which support channel an owner happens to find.1
With respect,Milan JovanovićContributor · Platform CouncilUtrecht, Netherlands