Panel to decide on Evaly’s plea for more time

The commerce ministry will form a committee to decide whether it would provide six months to Evaly after the digital platform sought the time to respond in detail to the show-cause notice it received.

On July 19, the ministry sent a letter to Evaly, asking it to explain by August 1 how it would settle its current liabilities to customers and merchants. Evaly's reply came on the last day of the deadline.

The notice ordered the e-commerce site to come up with an explanation why no legal action would be taken against it to protect customers and merchants and prevent the digital commerce sector from any negative impact.

It also inquired about the company's business practices.

"The company has given a reply and sought six months to provide its response in full. A committee will decide whether the ministry will give it the time," Hafizur Rahman, additional secretary of the ministry, told The Daily Star.

A committee will be set up after August 5, and it would sit immediately, he said.

The body will comprise representatives of Bangladesh Bank, the home affairs ministry, the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection, and e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh.

In its reply to the notice of the ministry, Evaly said it wanted to have its financial statements audited by a third party and set a valuation of the company.

"We have to work on a lot of data and analytics that requires a significant amount of time and effort," Mahbi Chowdhury, senior vice-president of Evaly, told The Daily Star yesterday.

"Hence, we have replied to some of the queries and sought six months to come up with the replies to the rest of the queries in details."

The commerce ministry's notice also asked Evaly to clarify the whereabouts of around Tk 338 crore that the platform owed to customers and merchants.

According to an investigation report of Bangladesh Bank, Evaly has a liability of Tk 213.94 crore to customers and Tk 189.85 crore to merchants.

It has assets worth Tk 91.69 crore. Of the sum, the current asset amounts to Tk 65.17 crore.

The commerce ministry said it had noticed that Evaly was not delivering products on time despite receiving advance payments from customers.

"The merchants from whom it gets products are also not being paid. As a result, a large number of buyers and sellers are likely to suffer financially," the notice said.

It also wanted to know how much money Evaly received from customers since its inception to July 15 and the amount paid to merchants.