A review of online business regulatory framework to reduce IFF in Bangladesh

Abstract

Illicit Financial Flow (IFF) is a key development challenge all over the world. In developing countries, though IFF may take place in differentways, but over the past couple of years IFF via the digital ecosystem has beendemanding a rethink of the existing legal structure. For instance, in Bangladesh, the fastest developing country, by today about five leading ecommerce companies have been accused of fraud mostly in supply chainmanagement and also accused of money laundering issues. Therefore, theBangladesh government has adopted Digital Commerce Guidelines. Since thesee-commerce scams take place frequently, this raises the question of theeffectiveness of this existing legal structure in Bangladesh and how the samelegal framework can meet the challenge of IFF via digital platform. With thehelp of the comparative method, the research has tried to address these gaps inacademic literature from a qualitative approach. This study has indicated that aflaw in Bangladesh's present regulatory system is the lack of legislativedirections on how to supervise excessive discounts or predatory pricing.Finally, no cross-border e-commerce rules or recommendations have beenestablished under the present legal regulatory framework. As a result, it issuggested that these flaws in the current policy be reconsidered to reduce IFF.Overall, the findings of this study will assist policymakers in defining additionalactions aimed at reforming a robust digital regulatory environment.