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Posted in: Securities Regulations
On 26 November 2019, the National Assembly of Vietnam adopted the new Law on Securities (Securities Law 2019) to replace the Securities Law 2006. The Securities Law 2019 will come into effect from 1 January 2021. Here (click to download) are some notable points of the Securities Law 2019. This post is written by Nguyen Bich Ngoc.
In the latest draft amendment to the Securities Law 2006, compared with the earlier draft, the following new points , among others, are introduced :
· “Indirect ownership” of securities is defined to mean holding securities through a “related person” or an entrustment arrangement.
· The criteria of a professional investor is reduced. A company with a paid-up charter capital of VND 100 billion (about US$ 4.5 million) instead of VND 1,000 billion can now qualify as a professional investor. An individual with a portfolio of VND 2 billion (instead of a trading volume of VND 2 billion per month) or annual taxable income of VND 1 billion can now qualify as a professional investor. Qualifying as a professional investor is important since only a professional investor or a strategic investor could participate in a private placement of shares by a public company.
· Major customers or counterparties are no longer considered as a related person of a public company.
· The latest draft amendment seems to allow for issuance of shares at a price below par value if the current trading price of the issuer is lower than par value.
Collective action mechanism among bondholders is one of the common features in terms and conditions of a corporate bond. Two important features of collective action mechanism are:
· the use of a bond trustee to act for the benefit of bondholders; and
· the use of bondholders’ meeting to allow a decision of a majority (or super-majority) of bondholder regarding the bond (e.g. changing the terms of the bond) to bind minority bondholders who disagree with such decision.
Arguably, if the provisions of bondholders’ meeting are included in the terms of the bond and a bondholder agrees to such term then the provisions on a civil transaction under Civil Code 2015 may allow the use of bondholders’ meeting in Vietnam. However, the validity of a decision of a bondholders’ meeting which is not approved by all bondholders is still questionable under Vietnamese law. This is because:
The Ministry of Finance has released a latest draft amendment to the Securities Law 2006 (https://tinyurl.com/ydc44zyd), which is scheduled to be passed in the second half of 2019. It looks like that any major law in Vietnam will need to undergo major changes in every 10 years whether or not the changes are necessary. The draft amendments include the following major changes regarding capital raising process: