National Assembly delegates from Nghe An discuss quality control of goods on e-commerce platforms
On the morning of May 17, the National Assembly discussed in the hall the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Product and Goods Quality.
Faced with the increasing number of violations of product quality on e-commerce platforms, delegate Hoang Minh Hieu - a full-time member of the National Assembly's Committee on Law and Justice, agreed with the need to tighten management.
He cited that the number of violations of product quality on e-commerce platforms in 2024 increased by 266% compared to 2023.
The draft Law has taken a positive step in adding more responsibilities to e-commerce platforms, in line with international practices. However, to apply it effectively, three issues need to be clarified.
First of all, it is about the relationship between this regulation and the Law on Electronic Transactions that the Government is building to submit to the National Assembly in the coming time, which includes very specific and detailed regulations on the responsibilities of e-commerce intermediary digital platforms.
“Thus, there will be overlapping content between the two laws. We suggest that the drafting agency consider stipulating only one law to ensure consistency in regulations related to the responsibilities of parties in e-commerce, while ensuring the principle that one content is only regulated in one law,” said delegate Hoang Minh Hieu.
Regarding the responsibility of e-commerce platforms in verifying and tracing the origin of goods before and during the platform's operation, the delegate of Nghe An delegation said that this regulation is not appropriate because e-commerce platforms do not have enough tools and authority to carry out this requirement.
In fact, e-commerce platforms can only require sellers to provide information and documents as required by law, store and provide that information to competent authorities when requested.
Requiring e-commerce platforms to verify the origin and actively monitor the quality of goods is unreasonable and could lead to e-commerce platforms being held responsible for actions beyond their control. Therefore, he suggested that the drafting agency consider and clarify in order to make appropriate adjustments.
Regarding the regulations on the responsibility of e-commerce platforms in removing or blocking the display of infringing products within no more than 24 hours of receiving a request from a competent state management agency or consumer, delegate Hoang Minh Hieu found that this regulation is basically similar to the provisions of the laws of other countries.
However, to ensure completeness and feasibility, it is recommended that specific provisions on conditions for these removal and blocking requests be added.
Accordingly, to avoid affecting the rights and interests of the seller, these requirements must ensure a clear reflection of the illegality of the products and goods being sold with elements such as: clearly describing the products and goods considered to be infringing; clearly stating the legal basis for this reflection. At the same time, the law also needs to stipulate a mechanism to allow the seller the opportunity to respond to protect his rights and interests.
In addition, regarding the requesting subjects, delegates said that in addition to state agencies and consumers, this regulation lacks a very important subject, which is the parties with related interests, especially the subjects with intellectual property rights.
Adding this subject will contribute significantly to the prevention of counterfeit goods on the e-commerce platform. Only the owner of intellectual property rights to the product can easily recognize that his product or goods is counterfeit.
Therefore, the delegate proposed to add this subject to the subjects required to request e-commerce floors to remove or restrict infringing goods and have appropriate handling mechanisms.
The draft Law has stipulated many policies to support the improvement of the capacity of enterprises in the national quality infrastructure. However, according to delegate Hoang Minh Hieu, some of the policy contents stipulated are somewhat overlapping with the laws amended and supplemented at this session, such as: deducting expenses from corporate income tax; reducing corporate income tax for 2 years for some enterprises that are also within the scope of the Law on Corporate Income Tax...
Therefore, delegates suggested that the drafting agency consider transferring these contents to corresponding tax laws to ensure consistency of the legal system.
Regarding transitional provisions, the draft Law stipulates: From the effective date of this Law, the phrases "group 2 products and goods", "group 2 goods", "group 2 products" in other legal documents are understood and applied uniformly as "products and goods with medium risk and high risk".
Delegate Hoang Minh Hieu said that this provision is unclear because along with the change from the 2-type commodity classification regime to the 3-type classification regime, the draft law also provides different management mechanisms for different types of products and goods based on the level of risk. Therefore, if the above regulation is applied, it will not be possible to distinguish different management mechanisms for the 2 types of goods with medium risk and high risk.
Therefore, he suggested that the drafting agency review relevant legal documents to amend them for each case to meet management requirements based on the level of risk; at the same time, this is also a requirement of the Law on Promulgation of Legal Documents on the responsibility of the drafting agency in reviewing current legal documents to amend them in accordance with the promulgated documents.
On the morning of May 17, the National Assembly listened to the presentation and report on the review of the draft Law on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Vietnamese Nationality; the draft Law on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Bidding; the Law on Investment under the public-private partnership model; the Customs Law; the Law on Export Tax and Import Tax; the Investment Law; the Law on Public Investment; the Law on Management and Use of Public Assets; discussed in the hall on adjusting and supplementing the state budget estimate for 2025; voted to pass the National Assembly's Resolution on a number of special mechanisms and policies, creating breakthroughs in building and organizing law enforcement; and the National Assembly's Resolution on mechanisms and policies for private economic development.
