Are there any laws that prohibit trading on the airplane?

Question

I mean by fellow passengers/individuals not the aircrew. Like if the person sitting next to you offers to sell you something.

This would be part of the shadow economy. There is a great Freakonomics podcast from 3 years ago this week which covers this topic indepth. — Mark Mayo, Aug 28 '15 at 00:59
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not a question about travel but a question about laws — Calchas, Aug 28 '15 at 02:03
This is a rather hypothetical but it is unlikely that an airline that want to sell you stuff will let you sell stuff to the passengers on a flight. — Karlson, Aug 28 '15 at 02:15
Boeing officially sells their aircraft in flight. As in, the handover of the paperwork is usually done on board the aircraft during its delivery flight... — jwenting, Aug 28 '15 at 06:04
@jwenting Not sure of the relevance here but it's still the owner/lessor/lessee of the aircraft doing the selling. — Karlson, Aug 28 '15 at 18:10

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 27 '15 at 20:44

There are no such restrictions on flights.

However, for your own safety; you should be careful and apply your normal common-sense checks, just like you would in any other transaction.

There are no specific protections provided to you, just because you are on a flight.

You would still be liable for the sale (for example, if the item is subject to customs you would be liable for that; similar to taxes, etc.).

Especially be cautious purchasing electronic items which may be [a] counterfeit [b] stolen [c] infested with malware.

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