Food-delivery firms making most of Covid-19 crisis
Many food-delivery operators have been found to be taking advantage of the fact that restaurants can’t serve meals in their premises in line with measures to curb Covid-19 and charging restaurants unfair amounts for their services.
The Office of Trade Competition Commission (OTCC) will monitor such unfair practices and operators found guilty will be find up to 10 per cent of their yearly revenue, OTCC’s secretary-general Somsak Kiatchailak said. This is in line with the 2018 Competition Act, he added.
OTCC is watching out for operators that charge restaurants a lot for promotions and set unfair conditions, he said, adding that the commission also found many delivery operators had set tricky conditions in their contracts that stopped restaurants from opting for other companies.
The commission has set up a sub-committee to study unfair behaviour in the food-service sector and has told it to come up with regulations to stop unfair practices.
Initially though, Somsak said, both operators and restaurants will be given an opportunity to have their say before the new rules are put into effect.
