Thale.com, Glitters RST World, Annex Worldwide Limited, Excellent World Agro Food and Consumer Limited, Alif World and Green Bangla E-Commerce Limited have to leave the online market.
The Ministry of Commerce has decided to permanently block the weblinks of these 6 e-commerce ocompanies on the charge of conducting multilevel marketing (MLM) or network business online. However, responsible sources of the Ministry of Commerce said that Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) will be required to implement this closure decision. The source said that since BTRC regulates the weblinks of all types of online organizations, a letter will be sent to the BTRC chairman on Sunday to take necessary steps to implement the decision of the technical committee. This decision will be effective only after BTRC closes the weblinks of the accused institutions companies.
According to the sources, this decision was taken in the sixth meeting of the technical team formed on Thursday as it was proved to the investigation committee about the specific complaints received from various individuals and groups.
In this regard, Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, Director General of WTO Cell and Head of Digital Commerce Cell Md. Hafizur Rahman said, “Section 3.1 of the 2021 e-commerce guidelines issued by the Ministry of Commerce. 3. Multi-level marketing (MLM) or network business cannot be conducted through digital commerce or e-commerce. But we have had complaints from various individuals and groups that some digital commerce companies are running MLM business completely illegally using online weblinks and social media links. Based on these allegations, the Digital Commerce Cell has independently conducted a preliminary investigation and found that the allegations made by various individuals and groups are true. The matter was taken into consideration and taken up in the technical committee meeting on digital commerce on Thursday. In the meeting, a unanimous decision was taken to shut down six e-commerce companies operating MLM business illegally.
According to the Ministry sources, in this meeting of the Technical Committee on Digital Commerce, the Cabinet Department, Bangladesh Bank, Local Government Department, Public Security Department, Home Ministry, Information and Communication Technology Department, Defense Ministry, National Board of Revenue, Financial Institutions Department, Law and Justice Department, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Police Headquarters, Bangladesh Competition Commission, BTRC, Special Branch, Bangladesh Police, Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Directorate General of Defense Intelligence, National Security Intelligence Agency, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), National Consumer Protection Directorate, Digital Security Agency, FBCCI, a2i Project and CAB nominated representatives were present.
In the future, if there is evidence of MLM business under the guise of e-commerce business against any other organization, the meeting also agreed to take a strict decision to stop them in stages.