New Law on Environment Protection in Vietnam
On 17 November 2020, the National Assembly passed a new law on environment protection (Environment Protection Law 2020) which will take effect from 1 January 2022 and replaces the old Environment Protection Law 2014. Below are some of notable new points of the Environment Protection Law 2020.
Will break time within a normal work shift be excluded from the overtime calculation?
Decree 145/2020 of the Government clarifies several contents of the Labor Code 2019. One notable point is the guidance on how to calculate the overtime (OT) cap. Specifically, under Article 60.5 of Decree 145/2020, “break time within a work shift will be deducted when calculating the monthly or yearly overtime hours” (“Exemption”). Without further clarification on this provision, it is however unclear how to interpret this Exemption in practice.
Example: A company organizes for its employees to work under the shift pattern of 12 hours/shift (7.00am-7.00pm; 7.00pm-7.00am). For each shift, 10 hours are considered as normal working time, and the remaining 2 hours are overtime. Within a shift, the employees shall be entitled to 60 minutes of break falling within first 10 normal working hours. Will 60 minutes of break be excluded from the total monthly or yearly OT cap of an employee under Article 60.5 above?
Based on Article 60.5 of Decree 145/2020, there may be two different interpretations on the calculation of OT in this case.
Comparison between VIAC and SIAC arbitration proceeding
The below diagram summarises the key steps in an arbitration proceeding at Vietnam International Arbitration Center (VIAC) and Singapore International Arbitration Center (SIAC). A pdf version can be downloaded here. This post is written by Ha Kieu Anh.