New Decree on Protection of Personal Data in Vietnam and Comparison with GDPR

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On 17 April 2023, the Government issued Decree 13 on personal data protection (Decree 13/2023). Decree 13/2023 marks a significant milestone as the first comprehensive legal document that governs the protection of personal data in Vietnam. As compared to the draft decree on personal data protection (Draft Decree), Decree 13/2023 has been significantly improved to incorporate key aspects necessary to protect personal data to align with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In this post, we will discuss key issues under Decree 13/2023 while comparing it to the Draft Decree and GDPR. This post is written by Trinh Phuong Thao and edited by Nguyen Quang Vu.

1.         Things to be done by 1 July 2023

Ideally, before 1 July 2023, both onshore and offshore entities involving in collecting and/or processing personal data of Vietnamese individuals or foreign individual residing Vietnam should do the following:

  • having proper consents from the relevant data subject (see 7);

  • if it is a data controller, having a contract with the relevant data processor (see 4);

  • determining whether it deals with basic personal data or sensitive personal data;

  • preparing and submitting an assessment of the impact of personal data processing to the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) (see 10);

  • preparing and submitting an assessment of the impact of offshore transferring personal data to the MPS (see 11);

  • setting up system to protect the safety and confidentiality of the personal data which it collects or processes; and

  • setting up a personal data protection department and a data compliance officer if it deals with sensitive personal data.

Decree 13/2023 only exempts small and medium enterprises or start ups from complying with certain requirements until 1 July 2025.

One key missing ingredient though is the potential penalty which may apply in case of non-compliance. Accordingly, currently, Decree 13/2023 has no teeth in enforcing the above requirements. Unlike Decree 13/2023, the GDPR has clear penalties and fines applicable to violations of the GDPR.

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Written by Nguyen Quang Vu On In ,

NEW RESTRICTIONS ON ONE-WAY MONEY TRANSFER ABROAD

On 30 December 2022, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) issued Circular 20 guiding activities of one-way money transfer from Vietnam to abroad and payment, money transfer for other current transactions of institutional residents and individual residents (Circular 20/2022), which took effect from 15 February 2023. In this post, we summarise certain key points of Circular 20/2022.

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Written by Lawyers VNLaw On In

Comments on Draft Vietnamese Land Law 2023

In recent months, the Government has published the draft Land Law 2023 and asked for public comments. In March 2023, Venture North Law submitted to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment our comments to the draft . The comments are contributed by Nguyen Quang Vu, Nguyen Bich Ngoc, Nguyen Hoang Duong and Ha Kieu Anh. A copy of our comments in both English and Vietnamese can be downloaded here. Be prepared! The document is 200 page long.

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Written by Nguyen Quang Vu On In ,

Potential Issues for Vietnamese Bondholders When Bond Issuer Are In Default

The recent credit crunch and anti-corruption campaigns in Vietnam have made many bond issuers in Vietnam fail to repay their outstanding bonds. According to a recent report, around 67 bond issuers are in default and the outstanding amount is around US$ 3.7 billion. Bond issuers, who wish to recover the principal and coupons and to enforce their rights, could face significant legal issues. In this post, we will discuss some of these issues:

·        Lack of documents and information: It may be difficult for a bondholder to have access to all the transaction documents of a bond including (1) detailed bond terms and conditions,  (2) agreements between issuers and other service providers such as bondholders’ representative, security agent, or registration agents, and (3) security agreements. This is because under the law, a bond issuer is not required to make public all these documents. Only a summary of key terms and conditions of the bonds is required to be published. And only for bonds issued after 1 January 2021, a bond holder is granted the right to request for documents and information relating to the bonds. In addition, in practice, many individual investors did not pay attention in collecting these documents when purchasing the relevant bonds.

·        Uncooperative agents: In a standard bond transaction, the bond issuer will usually engage various service providers to act as representatives for the bondholders (e.g., bondholders’ representative, security agents, or registration agents). Since these representatives are appointed and paid by the bond issuer, in practice, they may be reluctant to take actions against the bond issuers for the benefit of the bond holders if the bond issuers are in default.

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Written by Nguyen Quang Vu On In ,