Indonesia has capped ride-hailing platform commissions at 8%, winning support from drivers while leaving capital markets notably silent. This is not just Indonesia’s story. It reflects a legal vacuum that Vietnam is also confronting — not only in ride-hailing apps but across the broader platform economy, which is increasingly embedded in daily life.

What kind of business is a digital platform? Vietnamese law has no clear answer On May 1, 2026, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto signed a decree capping commissions charged by ride-hailing platforms at 8%, sharply down from the roughly 20% currently collected by major platforms from drivers. He put it bluntly: “Drivers are the ones sweating, but platforms are the ones collecting the money.” That scene has not yet played out in Vietnam. But the legal questions behind it already exist—and remain unresolved. In Vietnam today, digital platforms are exerting growing influence across multiple sectors: ride-hailing and food delivery, e-commerce, accommodation services, cleaning services, peer-to-peer lending, and more. What they all have in common is this: platforms do not directly produce goods or provide services. Instead, they create applications that connect service providers with users and charge a fee per transaction. The first legal question appears simple: what type of business are these digital platforms? The answer determines the entire legal framework that applies to them. If they are considered direct service providers, sector-specific laws would apply, such as traffic laws for transportation activities or commercial laws for retail transactions. If they are considered intermediary technology service providers, then an entirely different regulatory framework would apply. Traditional business regulations were built on the assumption that companies directly provide services: they own assets, employ workers, and bear responsibility for outcomes. Digital platforms operate under a fundamentally different model. They do not own vehicles, do not hire drivers or delivery workers under traditional employment contracts, and do not directly sell products. They simply provide a mobile application that facilitates transactions and charges fees when those transactions are completed. This ambiguity creates a series of additional legal questions: Are platform workers — drivers, couriers, and service providers — employees, independent contractors, or an entirely new category of legal subject not yet recognized by law? Are the fees collected by platforms ordinary technology service fees, or are they rents extracted from dominant market positions? Each answer leads to an entirely different legal toolkit. The relationship between digital platforms and platform workers involves elements of labor law, commercial law, and competition law — but does not fit neatly into any one category. This is a legal gray area that Vietnamese law has yet to address. How should platform market share be calculated? Every method leads to different outcomes Vietnam’s 2018 Competition Law built its entire framework for regulating market dominance, economic concentration, and anti-competitive agreements around one central concept: market share. Without defining market share, none of these enforcement mechanisms can be activated. But how should the market share of a digital platform be measured? By service fee revenue? By the number of registered service providers? By the number of completed transactions? By active users? Each method produces different results—and could lead to entirely different legal conclusions. Article 9 of Vietnam’s 2018 Competition Law and Government Decree No.35/2020/ND-CP define the relevant market based on substitutability from both demand and supply perspectives. That methodology was designed for traditional one-sided markets, where buyers and sellers are clearly identifiable. Digital platforms operate in two-sided markets: On one side are service users — passengers, shoppers, hotel guests. On the other side are service providers — drivers, merchants, and property owners. These two groups interact through the platform and create value for one another. The Vietnam Competition Commission (VCC) has never handled a case involving digital platforms. There are no formal guidelines, no legal precedents, and no unified methodology for evaluating this type of market. As a result, the 30% market share threshold used to determine market dominance under Article 24 of the 2018 Competition Law may not accurately reflect the real market power of platforms — regardless of how it is calculated. A platform may hold less than 30% of market share by revenue while still controlling the largest user database and operating order-allocation algorithms that service providers cannot realistically refuse if they want stable income. Article 27 of the 2018 Competition Law lists forms of abuse of market dominance, but it does not address algorithmic dynamic pricing, discriminatory order allocation, or opaque rating systems that directly affect workers’ access to income opportunities. More concerningly, digital platforms set prices simultaneously for both sides of the market. For service users, platforms determine prices through algorithms, leaving users with no room to negotiate. For service providers, platforms also determine the commission rates they collect, which providers likewise cannot negotiate. A platform’s revenue is the difference between what it charges users and what it pays service providers after deducting fees: the platform controls both sides of the equation, and neither party has meaningful ability to intervene. Platforms can raise service prices without increasing provider income, or increase commission rates without lowering prices for users. This represents a fundamentally different structure of market power from traditional businesses, which typically set prices for only one group and face competitive pressure from that side. This behavior could fall under Article 27 of Vietnam’s 2018 Competition Law on abuse of dominant market position, particularly Clause 2, which addresses the imposition of unreasonable conditions. However, before Article 27 can be applied, authorities must first determine whether a platform holds a dominant market position. To determine market dominance, market share must first be established. To calculate market share, regulators must first define the relevant market. And for two-sided markets, there is still no regulatory guidance on how to define the relevant market. This creates a legal vicious cycle: Without a defined relevant market, market share cannot be calculated. Without market share, market dominance cannot be determined. Without proving market dominance, Article 27 of the 2018 Competition Law cannot be enforced. Billion-dollar startup acquisitions — would the VCC even know? Article 33 of Vietnam’s 2018 Competition Law and Article 13 of Decree No. 35/2020/NĐ-CP require merger notifications when a transaction exceeds one of three thresholds: The acquired company’s total revenue in Vietnam exceeds VND3 trillion, the acquired company’s total assets in Vietnam exceed VND3 trillion, or the acquisition value exceeds VND1 trillion. But the 2018 Competition Law contains no mechanism requiring disclosure based on the transaction’s actual economic value — namely, the price the buyer is genuinely willing to pay to gain control of the target company. A major platform could easily acquire a potential competitor before that competitor becomes large enough to threaten its market dominance — without the VCC ever knowing. For technology startups, all three thresholds can be easily circumvented: Revenue threshold. This is perhaps the easiest threshold to avoid. Startups are often in high-growth phases but may generate limited revenue—or even operate at a loss — while aggressively spending to capture market share. They may have millions of users and significant market value while still generating less than VND3 trillion in revenue. Asset threshold. This threshold also fails to capture economic reality. The core value of technology startups lies in user data, algorithms, brand value, and growth potential. These assets are often not fully reflected on balance sheets under current accounting standards. Book assets may appear small while the actual economic value is substantial. Transaction value threshold. This is the most realistic threshold, but it still contains loopholes. When both parties have affiliated offshore entities, most of the transaction’s actual value can be structured at the parent-company level abroad, while contracts recorded in Vietnam may reflect only a small portion below the VND1 trillion threshold. Parallel conduct Vietnam’s 2018 Competition Law prohibits anti-competitive agreements, including price-fixing, market allocation, and other anti-competitive arrangements. To establish a violation, regulators must prove that an agreement exists — whether through written documents, verbal communication, or coordinated conduct supported by evidence. But what happens when multiple platforms in the same sector maintain nearly identical service fees over long periods without any evidence of direct communication or formal agreements? Can that be addressed? In economics, this phenomenon is known as parallel conduct — competitors observing one another and adjusting their behavior without explicit collusion. Vietnam’s 2018 Competition Law contains no provisions or guidance on how such behavior should be handled. This enforcement gap remains completely unresolved. Platform workers are neither employees nor consumers Platforms consistently classify workers — drivers, delivery workers, and service providers — as “independent partners” rather than employees. As a result, they fall outside the scope of Vietnam’s 2019 Labor Code. They are not entitled to mandatory social insurance. They are not covered by workplace accident insurance. They have no legal protections against sudden termination. At the same time, they are not considered “consumers” under Vietnam’s 2023 Law on Consumer Protection because they are service providers rather than service users. And as so-called “business partners,” they often lack the bargaining power necessary to protect themselves in contractual relationships with platforms. In substance, this relationship bears all the hallmarks of dependent employment: the platform controls service pricing, decides who gets assigned work, and maintains rating and ranking systems that directly affect workers’ ability to earn income. The service contract is entirely pre-drafted. Fee structures, rating mechanisms, conditions for temporary suspension, termination terms — all are unilaterally determined by the platform. Workers have only two choices: accept everything or opt out entirely. A platform worker may work 10–12 hours a day, yet have no mandatory social insurance, no workplace accident insurance, and no explanation for why they receive less work today than they did yesterday. That is the picture of a legal gap that needs to be addressed. Four things Vietnam should do instead of imposing a cap like Indonesia Indonesia’s experience shows that capping service fees through administrative orders addresses the symptom, not the underlying issue. The risks are clear: if profits become insufficient, platforms may scale back operations or exit the market altogether — workers lose jobs, and consumers lose choices. The root issue is market structure, and that is a matter for competition law, not administrative orders. There are four specific reforms Vietnam should consider: First, the VCC or the Ministry of Industry and Trade should issue guidelines for defining relevant markets in two-sided platform markets, including appropriate methods for calculating market share and identifying market dominance based on data power and network effects, rather than on revenue alone. This is the prerequisite step: without defining the relevant market, market share cannot be calculated; without market share, the entire enforcement framework cannot be activated. Second, Article 13 of Government Decree No.35/2020/ND-CP should be amended to require merger notifications based on the actual economic value of transactions — not merely the acquired company’s reported revenue or book assets. This would help prevent acquisitions of potential competitors whose real value lies in data and technology, even if their current revenue remains small. Third, regulators need specific guidelines addressing platform-specific abuses, such as discriminatory order allocation, dynamic pricing without a reasonable justification, and two-sided fee-setting without oversight mechanisms. Rather than imposing rigid fee caps through administrative orders, regulators should require greater transparency. Platforms that exceed certain market-share thresholds should be required to disclose their fee structures and explain how algorithms affect workers’ opportunities to receive jobs. Addressing information asymmetry — the root cause of the problem — would likely be more effective than direct price intervention. Fourth, Vietnam should consider creating an intermediate legal classification for platform workers under labor law. This would be neither a full employment status nor a pure service contract arrangement. It could include minimum protections such as workplace accident insurance funded by platforms, the right to be notified and receive explanations when accounts are suspended or contracts terminated, and access to independent complaint mechanisms. The gap between social realities and legal frameworks always exists. But if left unresolved for too long, it can lead to reactive and temporary policy responses rather than careful reform. Indonesia is the latest example. Vietnam has the advantage of being a late mover — but that advantage only matters if it is used for preparation, not delay. Three questions deserve serious study before the market finds its own answers: What is the current structure of Vietnam’s digital platform market, including market concentration, barriers to entry, and impacts on worker income? Can labor law expand protections for platform workers without eliminating the flexibility that makes the business model attractive? What additional legal tools and institutional capacity does the VCC need to effectively regulate digital markets?

(*) Director, The Gioi Luat Phap Law Firm LLC