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.

Is information property under Vietnamese law?

In many circumstance, information (e.g. user data) is more important to a business than its physical assets. This leads to an important question about the legal nature of information under Vietnamese law. Under the Civil Code 2015, a property (tài sản) is object, money, valuable papers and property rights. Except for intellectual property rights (including trade secret and data compilation) which are clearly recognised as a property right, the law is not clear whether other types of confidential information can be regarded as property.

The Civil Code 2015 also recognises and protects “civil rights” (quyền dân sự). Civil rights can be established as the result of the business operation or production operation. Accordingly, in theory, information, which is created (or generated) from business operation or production operation, could arguably be subject to civil right of the relevant entity which creates such information. However, the problem is there may be more than entities which create the information.

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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.

Licensing process for a new residential housing project in Vietnam

A foreign investor who wishes to set up a new company in Vietnam for a residential housing project in Vietnam may need to follow two different licensing routes depending on whether the project will require an in-principle approval under the investment regulations (Investment In-principle Approval)

If an Investment In-principle Approval is required then the key licensing steps for the foreign investor would be:

Vietnam Business Law