In June 2020, the Government adopted Decree 68/2020 amending the rules on interest expense cap under Decree 20/2017. Under Decree 20/2017, the total interest expense which can be deductible for the purpose of calculating corporate income tax of a company must not exceed 20% of the company’s EBITDA. The restriction has caused massive objection from Vietnam enterprises since Decree 20/2017’s purpose is to regulate tax arising from related transactions but not to regulate corporate income tax in general. In addition, the Law on Corporate Income Tax does not contain an interest expenses cap.

We have seen a ramp up in the e-commerce and online activities (online meetings, signing e-contracts, signing e-resolutions) in the covid-19 pandemic all over the world and Vietnam is no exception. This blog is to discuss some features of digital signature and authentication of digital signature under Vietnamese law.

1) In general, Vietnamese law recognizes the legal validity of e-contract and e-signature which satisfy the requirements at law. However, in certain cases, as a matter of practice digital signature (as opposed to other types of e-signature in general) may be specifically required since it is secured. Digital signature (chữ ký số) is a type of e-signature which is created by transformation of a data message using an asymmetric cryptosystem whereby the person having the initial data message and public key of the signatory may accurately verify (a) whether such transformation is created with a private key corresponding to the public key in the same key pair, and (b) whether the data message has been altered since the transformation (Article 3.6 of Decree 130 of the Government dated 27 September 2018 guiding the Law on E-transaction on digital signature and digital signature providing services (Decree 130/2018)).