In March 2026, the Trade Competition Commission of Thailand (TCCT) brought into force new guidelines on unfair trade practices, monopolisation, and anti-competitive conduct in multi-sided digital platform businesses. The notification was issued under Section 17(3) of the Trade Competition Act B.E. 2560 (2017) and covers conduct falling within Sections 50, 54, 55, 57, and 58 of the Act.
The guidelines are directed specifically at e-commerce and digital marketplace operators, and reflect the TCCT’s recognition that network effects, algorithmic control, and data accumulation allow platform operators to exercise influence simultaneously across sales, logistics, payments, and advertising. This article sets out the key definitions, conduct categories, safe harbours, and compliance implications.
Scope and Key Definitions
A multi-sided platform is defined as an intermediary connecting two or more distinct user groups through electronic systems. An e-commerce platform is any platform facilitating the buying and selling of goods or services electronically, whether or not a fee is charged, including e-marketplaces, social marketplaces, and similar intermediaries.
The notification protects four categories of platform participants:
- Sellers: businesses or individuals selling goods or services through the platform.
- Carriers: logistics providers operating within the platform ecosystem.
- Digital Media Advertisers: businesses providing advertising or promotional services on the platform.
- Payment Channels: payment infrastructure operators acting as intermediaries between buyers, sellers, and financial institutions.
An algorithm is broadly defined as any set of instructions or data processing steps used to achieve a business objective.
Prohibited and Potentially Prohibited Conduct (Clause 4)
Clause 4 sets out conduct that will be assessed as prohibited or potentially prohibited. It is divided into price-related and non-price conduct.
Price-Related Conduct
- Pricing below cost, including predatory below-cost pricing designed to eliminate competitors followed by recoupment. Short-term below-cost promotions may be permissible where they do not cause material harm.
- Rate parity clauses, requiring sellers to offer prices on the platform no higher than on other channels. Exceptions apply for genuine rights-holder and licensee arrangements.
- Resale price maintenance, fixing resale prices and penalising non-compliance through refusal to deal or delisting.
- Unjustified fees and charges, including commissions, advertising, logistics, promotional, and payment fees that are excessive, parallel-priced with competitors without justification, predatorily priced below variable cost, discriminatory between similarly situated sellers, or changed without adequate notice.
- Algorithmic price manipulation, including the use of price ranking systems to distort market prices without reasonable commercial justification.
Non-Price Conduct
- Visibility reduction and self-preferencing, using algorithms to restrict seller visibility or give preferential placement to the platform’s own products or affiliated sellers without justification, including covert placement through undisclosed advertising mechanisms.
- Forced use of services, requiring sellers to use the platform’s own logistics, payment channels, or advertising services as a condition of access, or mandating participation in promotional events such as double-date sales campaigns.
- Exclusive dealing, prohibiting sellers from listing on other platforms, enforced through account banning, delisting, or refusal to deal; and requiring sellers to supply the platform’s own channel on preferential terms not offered to competing platforms (tying and bundling).
- Anti-competitive use of third-party data, using data obtained from sellers or participants to build competitive advantages for the platform’s own operations or to enter markets in which participants are active.
- Discrimination, applying different algorithmic rankings or service allocations to similarly situated sellers or carriers without reasonable justification.
- Collusion and coordinated conduct, including algorithmic coordination between competing platforms such as keyword-bidding collusion.
- Other competition-restricting conduct, including sudden changes to commercial terms or fee structures without adequate notice.
Safe Harbours (Clause 5)
Conduct falling within Clause 4 will not be treated as unfair or anti-competitive if it satisfies any one of the following conditions:
- It has a reasonable basis in economics, business practice, or technology.
- It is consistent with prevailing commercial practice in the relevant market, or reflects conduct that similarly situated businesses would reasonably adopt to compete.
- It does not materially restrict, distort, or exclude competition, and does not create an unreasonable burden for other operators.
Satisfaction of any single condition is sufficient. The TCCT may also consider other relevant factors, including the nature of the contractual relationship and other applicable legal constraints.
What Platform Operators Should Consider
The guidelines do not prescribe standalone penalties but operate within the existing Trade Competition Act framework. Conduct found to violate the Act may attract administrative and criminal sanctions, including fines and imprisonment for responsible individuals.
The scope extends beyond formally dominant operators. The TCCT may intervene where a platform holds superior bargaining power over dependent participants, even if formal dominance thresholds under the Act are not met.
Algorithms are a primary compliance focus. Pricing systems, search ranking mechanisms, and visibility controls that produce exclusionary or discriminatory outcomes will attract scrutiny regardless of intent. Operators should document the rationale behind algorithmic design decisions.
Data use requires careful governance. The anti-competitive use of third-party data is expressly addressed. Platforms must ensure that data obtained from sellers and participants is not used to compete against them or to build proprietary advantages.
Safe harbours reward documented justification. Given that a single justification is sufficient to avoid a finding of unfairness, maintaining clear commercial rationales for fee structures, bundling arrangements, and algorithmic systems will be central to managing enforcement risk.
Broader Regulatory Context
These guidelines sit alongside Thailand’s existing frameworks for data protection (PDPA), payment systems, and digital assets. Taken together, they reflect a consistent regulatory philosophy: digital platforms exercising market power are held to standards comparable to those applied to traditional financial and commercial institutions, with emphasis on substance over form. Compliance for platform operators is therefore not a one-time licensing exercise but an ongoing governance obligation spanning commercial design, algorithmic systems, and participant relationships.For legal advice on competition compliance, platform governance, or regulatory strategy in Thailand’s digital economy, please contact our Technology, Crypto, and Web3 team at [email protected].
