Comments on Draft on Law on Real Estate Business – Part 1

Please download the pdf version here.

In May 2023, Ministry of Construction and VCCI jointly held a Seminar on Draft of new Law on Real Estate Business (Draft Real Estate Business Law) to collect opinions and comments from enterprise community and experts. The Draft Real Estate Business Law appears to be the latest version having been published before it is submitted to the National Assembly. The new Law on Real Estate Business is scheduled to be adopted by the National Assembly in November 2023. We will try to highlight some notable changes introduced by the Draft Real Estate Business Law in this post and subsequent posts.

This post is written by Nguyen Hoang Duong and Nguyen Quang Vu.

Venture North Law's Legal Guide To Merger Control In Vietnam (2023 Update)

In December 2020, we published a comprehensive Legal Guide To Merger Control In Vietnam (see here). In April 2023, the Government established the Vietnam Competition Commission (VCC). On this occation, we update our legal guide to reflect the establishment of the VCC. The updated guide can be downloaded here.

The guide is updated by Le Minh Thuy.

Comments on Draft Decree on Cybersecurity Administrative Sanctions

On 31 May 2023, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) released the 3rd draft of the Decree on Cybersecurity Administrative Sanctions (3rd Draft Decree). The 3rd Draft Decree provides administrative penalties on violations of cybersecurity laws (i.e., Law on Cybersecurity 2018, Decree 53/2022 detailing the Law on Cybersecurity 2018) and personal data regulations (i.e., Decree 13/2023 on personal data protection). In this post, we provide comments and respective recommendations of several provisions under the 3rd Draft Decree. This post is written by Trinh Phuong Thao and edited by Nguyen Quang Vu.

Should Foreign Investors Contribute Capital To Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Enterprise In An Amount Denominated In A Foreign Currency Or In VND?

Introduction

An FDI enterprise is an enterprise which is established by foreign investors with or without domestic investors. It is a common practice for foreign investors to contribute capital to an FDI enterprise in a foreign currency, such as USD, with the amount denominated in that particular foreign currency recorded in the FDI enterprise's Enterprise Registration Certificate (ERC) and/or Investment Registration Certificate (IRC). The difference in exchange rate between the date of the IRC and the date of actual contribution often leads to a disparity between the VND amount converted from the contributed capital in foreign currency and the VND amount recorded in the IRC. Different

In such cases, it remains uncertain whether the foreign investors will be considered to have fully fulfilled their capital contribution because it is not clear which amount should be used to determine if the FDI enterprise's charter capital has been fully contributed: (i) the VND amount after being converted from the foreign currency, or (ii) the actual contributed amount in foreign currency (see analysis below). Different authorities may have different views on this issue.