Unlike Domestic Arbitral Awards, Foreign Arbitral Awards to be enforceable in Vietnam shall be performed through step of recognition and enforcement of awards. This procedure shall be performed at a Competent Court of Vietnam, and in order for the performance to not take too much time, you need to notice some issues below:

1. Arbitral Award shall meet the following conditions to be considered to be enforced and recognized in Vietnam

• Foreign Arbitral Award that the foreign country and Vietnam are both members of international treaty on recognition and enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Award. This means that in the case countries are both members of international treaty of Vietnam, award of commercial arbitrations in those countries are considered recognition and enforcement in Vietnam.
• Foreign Arbitral Award does not fall into the case specified above on the basis of the principle of reciprocity.
• In addition, Foreign Arbitral Award specified in the above 02 conditions shall be the final award of Arbitral Tribunal to settle the entire content of dispute, terminate arbitration proceedings and to be enforceable.

2. Individual/organization has the right to apply for recognition and enforcement Foreign Arbitral Award

The judgment creditor or his/her legal representative has the right to request Vietnamese Court to recognize and enforce in Vietnam Foreign Arbitral award, if:

• Judgment debtor being a resident individual and work in Vietnam; or
• Judgment debtor being an agency, organization has its headquarter in Vietnam; or
• Shall have assets related to the enforcement of Foreign Arbitral in Vietnam at the time of request.

3. Cases of not recognizing arbitral award

In some case, Foreign Arbitral Award shall not be recognized and enforced in Vietnam, specifically:

Vietnamese Court shall not recognize Foreign Arbitral Award when considering the evidence provided by judgment debtor to the Court to oppose the request of recognition is well founded and legal and arbitral award belongs to one of the following cases:

• Parties signing arbitration agreement do not have the capacity to sign that agreement under the law applicable to each party;
• The arbitration agreement does not have value under the law of the country which parties chose to apply or under the law of the country where the award was declared, if parties have not chosen law applicable to that agreement;
• Judgment debtor being an agency, organization, individual is not notified in a timely and proper manner about the appointment of Arbitrator, about the procedure for dispute settlement at Foreign Arbitral or for other legitimate reasons to perform their procedural rights;
• Foreign Arbitral Award declared about a dispute is not requested by parties or exceeds the request of the parties signing arbitration agreement.
• The composition of Foreign Arbitral, the procedure for dispute settlement of Foreign Arbitral is not appropriate for arbitration agreement or the law of country where Foreign Arbitral Award was declared, if arbitration agreement does not specify those issues;
• Foreign Arbitral Award has not yet had the binding force on parties;
• Foreign Arbitral Award is annulled or suspended enforcement by competent authority of the country where the award was declared or of the country whose law has been applied.
• According to Vietnam law, dispute was not resolved in the form of arbitration;
• Recognition and enforcement in Vietnam Foreign Arbitral Award is contrary to the basic principles of the law of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Currently, overseas individual and organization have many difficulties in performing the procedure for recognizing and enforcing Foreign Arbitral award in Vietnam. These difficulties often arise from some own rules of Vietnam law in proceedings, the preparation of document, as well as the need to provide explanation to clarify the requirements of foreign individual, organization at the request of procedural authority. To avoid these issues, foreign individual and organization need to clearly understand the provisions of Vietnam law, prosecution process in Court and other issues related to preparing document.

Time of writing: 15/02/2023

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