Some issues relating to management of apartment buildings in Vietnam

Owners of apartments in an apartment building in Vietnam must set aside 2% of the purchase price for contribution into the apartment building’s maintenance fund (Quỹ bảo trì) and pay monthly contribution into the apartment building’s operation fund (Quỹ vận hành). The management of an apartment buildings including the maintenance fund and the operation fund will be handled by (1) “the meeting of [owners of] the apartment building”(hội nghị nhà chung cư) (building owner meeting) (2) a building management board selected by the building owner meeting, and (3) a management company selected by the meeting of owners of the apartment building.

Vietnamese law provides for a relatively detailed framework on management of an apartment building. However, several important issues, which are discussed below, are still not adequately addressed:

  • The residential housing regulations seem to require an apartment building to be managed by a single management company. However, an apartment building usually includes certain commercial components such as office or shopping mall which are managed and operated very differently (e.g., the lifts serving commercial section will be used more extensively that those used for residential section). Accordingly, the combination of management of both residential section and commercial section in one single mechanism could cause conflicts between the apartment owners and the owners of the commercial section.

Read MoreInfo
Comment
Written by Nguyen Quang Vu On In

Significant Amendments to Regulations on Management of Foreign Employees in Vietnam

On 18 September 2023, the Government issued Decree 70 (Decree 70/2023) to amend various regulations on management of foreign employees under current Decree 152/2020. Decree 70/2023 took effect immediately upon its issuance. Below is our discussion on notable changes introduced under Decree 70/2023.

1)         Easing requirements for engagement of foreign employees

  • Under Decree 70/2023, a foreign employee is no longer required to have educational background to be relevant to his/her work experience and proposed job in Vietnam. Instead, the law now only requires the employee to have a minimum work experience suitable for the proposed jobs;

  • Decree 70/2023 now expands the type of documents that can be used to demonstrate educational background and work experience of foreign employees being expert and technician. In particular, previous work permits or exemption certificates can also be used as evidence for foreign employee’s experience; and

  • A foreign employees now can use passport copy which has been certified by their Vietnam-based employer to apply for work permit or renew its work permit, this would facilitate employees’ application for work permits from abroad. Previously, the employees had to provide their original passport for notarization in Vietnam.

Read MoreInfo
Comment
Written by Nguyen Quang Vu On In ,

The Supreme Court’s clarification on various legal issues in Vietnam

n 24 April 2023, the Justices of the Supreme Court of Vietnam (the Supreme Court) hosted an online seminar to tackle some issues that arise in the courts’ trial practice. Official Letter no. 196/TANDTC-PC issued by the Supreme Court on 3 October 2023 (the Official Letter) documents the results from the online seminar in April. The Official Letter contains mainly the clarification and interpretation of the Supreme Court of the existing legal provisions across various areas of law, including penal, civil, commercial, and administrative. Although these clarification and interpretation are non-binding, they constitute an important source of interpretation for the court system to rely on.

In this post, we will discuss some clarifications from the Official Letter that we find interesting or noteworthy:

1)         The subjects capable of committing the crime of “Intentional public disclosure of false information or concealment of information in securities activities” (Article 209 of the Penal Code 2015) are the natural persons or commercial legal persons responsible for public disclosure of information regarding securities, and not the parties to a securities transfer transaction.

Our comments:

The clarification for the Supreme Court is not clear since under the securities regulations, sometimes parties to a securities transaction must make public disclosure about the transaction (e.g., sale or purchase of shares by a major/inside shareholder). So it appears that this crime only applies to a person who violate the disclosure obligations under securities regulations but not to a person who fails to disclosure information under its contractual obligations.

Read MoreInfo
Comment
Written by Nguyen Quang Vu On In ,

State Bank of Vietnam’s further clarifications on lending regulations

On 8 November 2023, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) issued Official Letter 8631 to publish answers to certain questions on lending regulations under Circular 6/2023 of the SBV dated 28 June 2023 (Circular 6/2023) amending Circular 39/2016 of the SBV dated 30 December 2016 on lending activities of credit institutions (CIs) and/or foreign bank branches with customers (Circular 39/2016).

The table below will highlight some notable answers of the SBV.

Read MoreInfo
Comment
Written by Lawyers VNLaw On In