Asia Legal

One of my Clients asks: “My company is a local company. We plan to sign a commercial contract with a foreign partner. Can we draft the contract in both English and Vietnamese? I heard from the accountant that the contract in both English and Vietnamese is not allowed as our company is a local company” I’m joking: “It’s fine, even when you add Lao language into that contract”  Vietnam has been deeply integrating into the world economy, with 13 free trade agreements signed. More and more Vietnamese businesses are doing business with foreign partners, and the parties usually agree that the contract is made in bilingual, including Vietnamese and another foreign language, most commonly English, followed by other languages such as Chinese (when the foreign partner is Chinese), and Japanese (when the foreign partner is Japanese), Korean (when the foreign partner is Korean)… In addition to a number of special cases, for which the contract must be in Vietnamese (in the field of technology ...

We advised a corporate client in a transaction to acquire 3 ha-land and assets attached to land (hereinafter referred to as “the land”) in a Northern province of Vietnam, from another company. We act on behalf of the Buyer. Since our client is not familiar with legal services and it is the first time they have been using legal services, our scope of works is limited to a number of key works such as drafting the contract, assisting the client during negotiations of the contract and following up until our client is legally recorded as the new owner of the land. Other works which our client can do itself including checking master plan to make sure that the land they acquire is not included in the construction planning for other projects, are carried out by the client. Nevertheless, when drafting the contract, we still include “representations and warranties” clause into the contract, in which we clearly specify that the Seller undertakes and warrants that the land is not included in any ...

I often receive the same and popular question from many of my clients whether they can write contract value in Vietnamese Dong, which is converted from USD in their contracts? One of the reasons, among others, why many Vietnamese people want to write the contract value in USD or in Vietnamese Dong, which is converted from USD in their contracts, is because of the exchange rate fluctuations between VND and USD, where the VND is often seen to suffer from price escalation. It is very simple to answer this kind of question as it is clearly stated under the applicable regulations of Vietnam. Specifically, pursuant to Ordinance No. 06/2013/UBTVQH13, within the territory of Vietnam, all transactions, payments, listings, advertisements, quotation, pricing, writing price on contracts, agreements and other similar forms of residents and non- residents must not be effected in foreign exchange except for cases permitted in accordance with regulation of the State bank of Vietnam. This regulation i...