News / WTO meeting spawns a split, with multinational e-commerce rules drive

© Francesco Alessi | Dreamstime.com - E-commerce

Frustration with the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) inability to advance towards a global set of rules for e-commerce has prompted a number of countries to push to develop such a framework among themselves.

Currently there are no universal regulations for e-commerce, leaving online merchants, their logistics providers and other partners to navigate a patchwork of bilateral and regional agreements.

At the WTO’s biannual conference in December, some 25 separate proposals on rules for e-commerce were on the table, but the 164 members ...