Deryl Leeland (1), Richard C. Adam (2)
General background: Indonesia’s rapidly expanding digital trade ecosystem has transformed market structures and intensified competition. Specific background: Within this environment, predatory pricing as a strategy of selling goods or services below cost to weaken competitors has become increasingly difficult to regulate due to digital platforms’ unique cost structures, cross-subsidization, and algorithmic pricing. Knowledge gap: Indonesian competition law lacks clear benchmarks for determining below-cost pricing, exclusionary intent, and recoupment, creating uncertainty in enforcement, especially against foreign digital actors. Aims: This study analyzes normative and practical barriers to enforcing predatory pricing rules in e-commerce and proposes an equitable regulatory model. Results: The findings show unclear cost definitions, limited data transparency, dynamic promotional practices, jurisdictional constraints, and the absence of technical guidelines, all of which impede consistent legal assessment. Novelty: This research offers a multidimensional regulatory framework informed by comparative practices from the United States, European Union, and China, incorporating algorithmic transparency, structural market effects, and temporal indicators of exclusion. Implications: A more adaptive and comprehensive regulatory structure is needed to strengthen legal certainty, protect SMEs, prevent digital-market exclusion, and promote a fair and sustainable competitive environment in Indonesia’s digital economy.
Highlights:
The study exposes major gaps in Indonesia’s legal standards for identifying below-cost pricing in digital markets.
Enforcement is hindered by limited data access, dynamic promotional models, and cross-border platform operations.
A new multidimensional regulatory model is proposed to ensure fairness, SME protection, and sustainable digital competition.
Keywords: Predatory Pricing, Digital Trade, Competition Law, E-Commerce Regulation, Legal Certainty
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