Essential Watchlists For Compliance With Anti-Money Laundering Regulations In Vietnam

Under anti-money laundering (AML) regulations, reporting entities (e.g., credit institutions) are required to be aware of several key watchlists, maintained by relevant Vietnamese authorities, to ensure compliance with their AML obligations. This blog will introduce those watchlists and discuss specific requirements related to them.

Essential watchlists under AML regulations

Under AML regulations, the Vietnamese Government maintains the following watchlists:

(1)             A Blacklist (danh sách đen in Vietnamese): including (a) list of organizations and individuals involved in terrorism and terrorism financing compiled by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), and (b) a list of organizations and individuals designated as being involved in the proliferation and financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, compiled by the Ministry of National Defense (MND);

(2)             A warning list/Grey list (danh sách cảnh báo in Vietnamese): A list of organizations and individuals compiled by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) to warn about those with a high risk of money laundering; and

(3)             A list of Foreign politically exposed person (PEP List) (danh sách cá nhân nước ngoài có ảnh hưởng chính trị in Vietnamese): A list of foreigners who hold a senior position in foreign agencies, organizations, and international organizations, notified by the SBV.

There are no specific guidelines on how to access these watchlists or the procedure for screening data against them. However, except for the Grey List, which has not yet been published by the SBV, the Blacklist ((1)(a) and (1)(b)) and PEP List can be found via the national portals of the MPS, MND, and SBV (see embedded links).

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Written by Nguyen Quang Vu On In

New Financing Regime For A Commercial Housing Project in Vietnam

Under the Housing Law 2023, a developer of a commercial housing project could raise financing from the following sources:

  • equity capital of the developer;

  • capital raised from joint venture, business cooperation, and contribution from other organizations or individuals (BCC Capital);

  • capital raised from issuance of corporate bonds, shares, and fund units;

  • pre-sale proceeds raised from sale and purchase agreements or hire and purchase agreements with regards to future houses signed with customers;

  • debt financing raised from credit institutions or finance organizations operating in Vietnam (bank loans).

In comparison with the Housing Law 2014, the Housing Law 2023 clearly includes capital raising from issuance of bonds and fund units but excludes pre-sale proceeds of leasing agreements for future houses. In this post, we will discuss each of the sources of financing for a commercial housing project. The Housing Law 2023 still does not allow a developer of a commercial housing project to raise debt financing from offshore lenders.

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Written by Nguyen Quang Vu On In

The Supreme Procuracy’s Clarification On Various Legal Issues In Vietnam

On 26 March 2024, the Supreme People’s Procuracy of Vietnam (the Supreme Procuracy) issued Official Letter no. 1083/VKSTC-V9 (the Official Letter) to respond to inquiries from local procuracies regarding supervision in legal proceedings regarding civil, marriage and family matters. Although these clarification and interpretation are non-binding, they constitute an important source of interpretation for the procuracy system to rely on. However, one should note that interpretation by a procurator is not binding on the court and therefore is not as important as a guidance issued by the superme court.

In this post, we will discuss some statements of the Supreme Procuracy under the Official Letter that we find interesting or noteworthy:

1)       Q&A no. 34: If (i) a civil transaction is not in the required form for it to be legally effective, (ii) the obligation therein cannot be quantified, and (iii) the court cannot determine how many parts of the obligation has been performed by the obligor then (a) Articles 129.1 and 129.2 of the Civil Code 2015, which allow an otherwise invalid transaction to remain valid if two thirds of the relevant obligations have been performed, would not be applicable to recognize the validity of such transaction and (b) such civil transaction would be consider invalid.

Our comments: The Supreme Procuracy seems to have taken the view that a party (i.e., the obligor who has performed a certain amount of work under such transaction) may only seek for recognition of the validity of a civil transaction if their situation is captured under Articles 129.1 and 129.2 of the Civil Code 2015.

Although this might be an understandable deduction from the straightforward reading of Article 129’s wordings, we believe that the aforementioned party should be able to request the court to consider their claim according to Article 14.2 of the Civil Code 2015 (i.e., the court should seek to apply customary practice, analogous law, basic principles of civil law, case law, and equity law to the case if Article 129 is not applicable) instead of being rejected immediately.

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Written by Nguyen Quang Vu On In ,