The Law on Independent Auditing provides substantial protection to an auditor in Vietnam. In particular, an user of the audit result can only make a claim against the auditor if the user:

• has an interest directly related to the audit result on the date of the audit report. It is not clear which evidence that an investor needs to submit to satisfy this requirement;
• has reasonable knowledge about financial statements, accounting standards, auditing standards and other related legal regulations. Except for sophisticated and professional investor, it is unlikely that a retail or other investors can qualify for this requirement;
• has used the audit result and the information in the audited financial statement prudently. Again, it is not clear what constitute a prudent use of the audited financial statement.

By way of comparison, under the US Securities Law, an investor purchasing shares in a listed company only needs to prove that information in an audited financial statement in the registration statement was misleading to make a claim against the auditor. Investors do not need to prove that they relied upon the registration or that the auditors were negligent.

The protection for auditors under the Law on Independent Auditing follows the existing protection under Circular 64/2004 of the Ministry of Finance. Under Circular 64/2004, an auditor can only be submitted to maximum fine of 10 times of the audit fees.