Significant Amendments To Law On E-Transactions In Vietnam

1)         Introduction

On 22 June 2023, the National Assembly issued a new Law on E-transactions, which will take effect from 1 July 2024 (LET 2023). The LET 2023 has the following notable points:

  • Unless otherwise clearly excluded, the LET 2023 applies to e-transactions in all areas whether by companies, individuals or Government agencies.

  • A data message converted from paper document or vice versa must have clear marking that it has been converted from paper document and information of the converter.

  • A natural person may not be able to create and use his/her own e-signature and may have to use digital signature for his/her e-transactions.

  • For the first time, trust services are introduced. The service provider must be licensed by the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC).

We discuss below each of these new points and some more. This post is written by Nguyen Quang Vu, Hoang Thi Thanh Thuy, Trinh Phuong Thao and Phan Thi Phuong Mai.

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Written by Nguyen Quang Vu On In ,

Enterprise code (instead of names and addresses) of a manufacturer or importer should be mandatory labelling content for goods circulated in Vietnamese market

Under the Enterprise Law 2020, each company in Vietnam has an unique enterprise code (mã số doanh nghiệp) which distinguishes such company from another company. If one has the enterprise code of a company, it can easily obtain information about its latest names and addresses from the National Enterprise Information Portal. Accordingly, the goods labelling regulations should require the enterprise code of entity responsible for goods circulated in Vietnamese market (generally, “responsible entity”) to be a compulsory content of a goods label.

However, currently the goods labelling regulations do not require the enterprise code of the responsible entity to be included in the label of goods circulated in Vietnam. Instead, under Decree 43/2017 on goods labelling, the labels of goods circulated in Vietnamese market must contain the name and addresses of the responsible entity. This requirement could cause significant inconvenience for the responsible entity especially those in FMCG sector, when it changes its name or address.

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Written by Nguyen Quang Vu On In

Direct Power Purchase Agreement in Vietnam – The basics

In the newly issued Power Development Plan VIII (PDP VIII), the direct power purchase agreement (DPPA) mechanism is said to be implemented on a pilot basis. The DPPA mechanism could offer an alternative for renewable energy projects to sell electric energy. However, PDP VIII stops short of providing broad strokes of what the DPPA mechanism will look like. That said, before the PDP VIII was issued, in 2022, a draft decision of the Prime Minister (Draft Decision) on a pilot scheme (Pilot Scheme) for the DPPA mechanism was circulated for public opinion collection. Such a scheme offers a look into the possible structure of the DPPA mechanism under PDP VIII. In this article, we will discuss the basic structure of the DPPA mechanism and some key points in a DPPA.

Under the Pilot Scheme, the DPPA mechanism is financial/synthetic DPPA and works as follows:

1.         the renewable energy generator will enter into a DPPA in the form of a forward contract (hợp đồng kỳ hạn) with a customer, under which the customer will guarantee a fixed price for the energy produced by the renewable energy project (see 3) and in return, the generator will transfer the “environmental attributes” created by the project to the customer;

2.         though the name DPPA suggests there is a sale of electric energy between the generator and the customer, under the DPPA mechanism, the generator won’t physically deliver electric energy to the customer; that is why it is called financial/synthetic DPPA. Instead, the generator will sell all of the generated electric energy to EVN in the wholesale electricity market under a template power purchase agreement provided in the Draft Decision. The power companies of EVN will then sell electric energy to the customer at retail prices. Such electric energy may not necessarily come from the project.

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Written by Nguyen Quang Vu On In ,