Abstract
The immense scope of global e-commerce sales, expected to reach USD 4.48 trillion by 2021, is growing much faster than e-commerce and online retail legislation. In China, where the number of online shoppers is expected to reach 798.8 million by 2020 of which almost 42% use mobile devices for payment, lawmakers have been overhauling internet law, and its efforts reveal innovative methods and criteria deserve closer observation. The article will focus on the analysis of e-commerce from three legal aspects: contracts, consumer protection and unfair competition. This area holds vast practical relevance, especially in a world constantly shifting from traditional transaction and shopping methods towards internet-based technology and online transactions. Hence, the importance of legal recourse that is able to rapidly adapt to the technological developments introduced by e-commerce. The article’s findings indicate that specific regulation of e-commerce activities is vital in the virtual world, where conventional concepts of law and the laws themselves can be difficult to apply. From the analysis of the new PRC E-Commerce Law, it appears to be well-balanced in its goals by providing improved protection to all online trading parties and ensuring the safe development of China’s online economy. However, it still raises some questions that require of further debate and lobbying, as will be presented in the article itself.
Highlights
Research and analysis of China’s booming e-commerce and online retail market is especially interesting since China is currently the second largest economy after the United States, but leads from the perspective of the number of online transactions, e-commerce platforms (e.g., Alibaba Group’s subsidiaries Taobao, Tmall, AliExpress etc.), mobile payment applications (e.g., Alibaba’s Alipay, Tencent’s WeChat Pay etc.) and in terms of the market’s rapid regulation, as will be presented in the article itself
Conclusion and Fulfillment of E-Commerce Contracts The ECL applies to contracts concluded between e-commerce parties and further stipulates that matters not covered by its provisions be regulated by the PRC General Provisions of the Civil Law, PRC Contract Law and Electronic Signature Law (ECL, Art. 47)
The ECL recognizes the use of automatic information systems to form or perform contractual action as legally effective
Summary
Ever since I met Jack Ma (founder and chairman of Alibaba Group), I have had two great successes: successful login and successful payment, and owned a ve-. Traditional methods of financial transactions and platforms, such as face-to-face cash and credit card transactions gradually decline Proof of this can be seen by disappearing queues in cash-less banks and traditional stores being coined “brick and mortar” shops to imply they are becoming a thing of the past. In China, retail e-commerce sales in 2018 were almost USD 600 billion, carried out by over 650 million Chinese online shoppers, a number expected to reach almost 800 million by 2020 (Eshopworld, 2019) To emphasize this point, on November 11, 2018 (China’s Singles Day), Alibaba Group (Chinese conglomerate of Internet-based businesses) processed over USD 30.8 billion in sales in just 24 hours, compared to USD 25.3 billion in 2017 (an increase of 27%). It is unfortunate that this distinction has not reached legislative bodies in China, so current legislation only refers to e-commerce
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