Cross-border e-commerce legal risks and response strategies

Overview of cross-border e-commerce legal risks

The rapid development of cross-border e-commerce has brought huge economic benefits to various countries, but it has also brought many legal risks. Due to the imperfect regulatory systems of various countries (regions) and the differences in laws and regulations, cross-border e-commerce faces a complex legal environment. In addition, cross-border e-commerce models such as overseas purchasing, direct purchase imports, and bonded imports also face a series of legal challenges.

Legal risks of overseas purchasing and direct purchasing and importing

Overseas purchasing (commonly known as “overseas purchasing”) refers to domestic consumers entrusting others to purchase specific consumer goods abroad, and then carry or send them to domestic consumers. Personal purchasing later developed into a professional purchasing website, providing consumers with complete overseas purchasing processes and services. Although there is a huge price difference between the prices of purchasing agents and domestic counters, due to the opaqueness of the purchasing process, consumers have blind spots in the information flow, capital flow and logistics links of the goods.

The direct purchase import (BC) model means that domestic consumers confirm the transaction on the e-commerce platform, and the consumer or logistics company completes the online shopping and electronic payment of postal tax through the platform, and then the overseas seller delivers the goods as a parcel or express mail. mode of transportation into the country. The merchants set up overseas warehouses to allocate and collect goods according to customer orders, and deliver them to domestic customers through international express direct mail to China or through their own cooperative logistics transfer companies, international airlines, etc.

Legal risks under the bonded import model

The bonded import (BBC) model refers to cross-border e-commerce or logistics companies using customs special supervision areas and bonded warehousing policies to transport goods into special supervision areas in advance. Once an order is generated, the items can be quickly sorted from the special supervision areas. Shipment to consumer. In this process, the green customs clearance channel provided by the special supervision area will facilitate the customs clearance of related items from within the area to outside the area. The entry and exit of goods in the special supervision area are strictly supervised by the customs, which is a relatively sunny customs clearance channel. However, in actual operation, the bonded stocking model still needs to comply with departmental regulations such as the “Four Laws and Three Regulations” and the “Measures for the Quarantine Management of Entry and Exit Mail Items” to ensure flexibility in compliance testing standards.

Legal protection of computer software

With the development of technology, computer software has become an important part of e-commerce. At present, a relatively comprehensive legal system for copyright protection has been established in the world, which incorporates computer software into copyright protection to provide more timely and complete protection for software. However, in the field of cross-border e-commerce, due to the widespread application of link technology, there is currently no unified statement on the infringement of link technology, and the regulations in different countries vary greatly.

Legal issues in importing cross-border e-commerce

1. Use of information and big data: Some sellers will collect consumer information in order to increase product sales. However, according to Article 29 of the Consumer Rights Protection Act, if the information collected is not Legal or illegal, it will violate the law. Moreover, these data can only be retained within the territory of the country and cannot be transferred to other countries.

2. Protecting consumer rights: In cross-border e-commerce, there are also some regulations to protect consumers, such as seven-day no-reason returns, etc. These are all to improve consumers’ shopping experience. According to laws and regulations, goods returned by consumers cannot be sold for a second time, otherwise they will be considered suspected of smuggling.

3. Inspection and Quarantine: In the bonded area, cross-border e-commerce sellers need to comply with relevant regulations and management measures. The certificate issued by the inspection and quarantine agency is an important document to prove the factual status and clarify the ownership of responsibilities.

4. Customs: Goods exported by cross-border e-commerce are subject to certain taxes. If the seller does not pay the export tax and sends the goods abroad, this also violates laws and regulations, which is commonly known as smuggling. If the seller wants to pay less tax, he needs to consult the cross-border e-commerce platform and try to legalize and make the tax on the goods as transparent as possible.

For sellers, it is crucial to understand the legal issues related to these imported cross-border e-commerce. Only by learning more about this aspect and reminding yourself to abide by the law can these problems be avoided.