The Thai Government is seeking to introduce into the Revenue Code the concept of transfer pricing. According to a draft amendment, the relevant officer will have the power to adjust income and expenses in a related party transaction if the parties have commercial or financial terms which would have been agreed differently had they operated business on an arm's length basis. We understand that the draft Amendment was forwarded to the National Legislative Assembly for consideration in early June 2018.
Further to the enactment of the new Trade Competition Act 2017 ("Act") in 2017, the Trade Competition Commission ("Commission") has prepared six subsidiary notifications ("Draft Notifications") under the Act. The main purpose of the Draft Notifications is to provide clarification on relevant trade competition issues as mentioned in the Act, as well as guidelines in determining the following:
- market definition and market share;
- business operators that are related to each other due to a policy or commanding power;
- prohibited behaviour of a business operator with market dominance;
- behaviour of business operators that would be considered as monopolising, reducing, or restricting competition in the market;
- conduct that would be considered as resulting in damage to other business operators; and
- legal acts or contracts with a business operator in a foreign country that are considered as monopolising or unfairly restricting trade.
A public hearing was held on 28 May 2018 to consider the Draft Notifications. The Draft Notifications have also been published for public comments on the official website of the Commission until 22 June 2018. After the hearing process is complete, the Draft Notifications will be finalised before becoming effective.
Two new Emergency Decrees on Digital Asset Businesses 2018 were published in the Government Gazette on 13 May 2018 and became effective the day after publication was made. The Royal Decree on Digital Asset Businesses 2018 sets out regulatory requirements on the operation of certain businesses in relation to digital assets (being either cryptocurrencies or digital tokens), and the public offering of digital tokens. More specifically, the operator of a restricted digital asset business (for example, a trading center, brokerage, or dealer business) is required to obtain a license from the Minister of Finance, on recommendation of the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). In addition, the offeror of digital tokens is required to obtain a license from the SEC directly. Failure to obtain any such licenses would result in criminal offences including an imprisonment and / or a fine.
The second Royal Decree was issued to amend the Revenue Code, in particular, to impose a tax liability on income gained from cryptocurrencies and digital tokens, which must be withheld by the payer of the income at the rate of 15%.
The draft amendment to the Copyright Act ("Bill") was proposed for public review and comments during the months of January and February 2018 on the official website of the Department of Intellectual Property. The major amendment under the Bill is the provision of a so-called "safe harbor" for service providers from copyright infringements conducted through their computer systems or networks. To qualify for safe harbor, service providers must, for instance, adopt and appropriately apply a policy to cancel the services provided to any service recipient who has repeatedly committed copyright infringements on their computer systems or networks, and must remove infringing contents from their computer systems or networks upon receipt of the copyright owner's notice. The Bill will be submitted for the consideration of the Council of the State, the Cabinet and the National Legislative Assembly, but further changes are expected before the Bill becomes law.
