Issues Related to Competition Laws

Vietnam

The Law No.12/2017/QH14 on amendment to the Criminal code No. 100/2015/QH13 provides a specific provision on competiton issues, particularly:

Article 50. Article 217 is amended as follows:

a) Clause 1 and Clause 2 of Article 217 are amended as follows:

"1. A person who commits any of the following acts and causes damage assessed at from VND 1,000,000,000 to under VND 5,000,000,000 for another person or obtains an illegal profit of from VND 500,000,000 to under VND 3,000,000,000 shall be liable to a fine of from VND 200,000,000 to VND 1,000,000,000 or face a penalty of up to 02 years' community sentence or 03 – 24 months imprisonment:

a) Reaching an agreement on preventing another enterprise from participating the market or developing its business;

b) Reaching an agreement on eliminating another enterprise which is not a party to such agreement from the market;

c) Reaching an agreement on limited competition while the parties to such contract has a total market share of ≥ 30%, including: agreement on directly or indirectly pricing goods/services; agreement on division of market, goods/services supply; agreement on restriction or control of quantity of goods/services; agreement on restriction on technological development or investment; agreement on imposition of conditions upon other enterprises for conclusion of sale contracts or forcing other enterprises to assume obligations that are not related to the contracts.

2. This offence committed in any of the following circumstances carries a fine of from VND 1,000,000,000 to VND 3,000,000,000 or a penalty of 01 - 05 years' imprisonment:

a) The offence has been committed more than once;

b) The offence involves the use of deceitful methods;

c) The offender takes advantage of its dominant position or monopoly on the market;

d) The illegal profit earned is ≥ VND 3,000,000,000; dd) The damage incurred by other enterprises is ≥ VND 5,000,000,000."; b) Point c Clause 4 of Article 217 is amended as follows:

"c) The violating corporate legal entity might also be liable to a fine of from VND 100,000,000 to VND 500,000,000, be banned from operating in certain fields or raising capital for 01 - 03 years.