Confidentiality in arbitration proceedings in Vietnam

There is no mandatory confidentiality obligations applicable to parties to an arbitration proceeding in Vietnam. Under the Law on Commercial Arbitration 2010, dispute resolution by arbitration will be conducted in private unless otherwise agreed by the parties. But hearing in private does not mean that information exchanged by the parties during the hearing must be kept confidential. Law on Commercial Arbitration 2010 only expressly imposes confidentiality obligation on the arbitrators but not on other parties attending the hearing (e.g. experts, witness or even lawyers). Arbitration Rule 2017 of Vietnam International Arbitration Center (VIAC) has no particular confidentiality provision beyond making the arbitral hearing private.

Contract structure in a condo-hotel project in Vietnam

In a condo-hotel project, the hotel developer sells hotel rooms to investors and offers a rental pool program which will be managed by a hotel operator after the hotel is constructed. The contract structure of a condo-hotel could be very complicated since it needs to address and allocate the needs and risks among various parties including the hotel developer, condo owners, operator, and project lenders. In addition to these common issues, there are certain Vietnamese law issues for a condo-hotel project in Vietnam.

Stricter regulations on issuance of Vietnamese Government guarantees

Under Decree 4/2017, the Vietnamese Government imposes stricter regulations on issuance and management of Government guarantees. Government guarantees under Decree 4/2017 are guarantees issued on behalf of the Vietnamese Government (as the guarantor) in favour of foreign lenders to guarantee loans or bonds borrowed or issued by companies in Vietnam. Under Decree 4/2017:

New control on cross-border supplies of news in Vietnam

From May 2017, under Circular 38/2016, websites, mobile apps, search engines and social networks (offshore websites), which are located outside of Vietnam but have more than one million visits from Vietnamese users a month or have servers located in Vietnam must:

provide necessary contact details to the Ministry Communication and Information (MCI); and
at the MCI’s request, remove from the offshore websites information and news which are considered illegal under Vietnamese law by the MCI. If the offshore websites do not cooperate with the MCI, the MCI may apply technical measures to block the illegal information and news from being accessed by Vietnamese users.

Vietnamese telecommunication service providers are required to have the necessary technical equipment to implement MCI’s blocking order within three hours of receipt of the relevant order. Circular 38/2016 will apply to the most popular social networks in Vietnam such as Facebook, Google, and Youtube.

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Vietnam Business Law