On May 21, 2019, the Government issued Decree No. 45/2019 / ND-CP stipulating penalties for administrative violations in the field of tourism. The Decree takes effect from August 1, 2019.
Accordingly, Vietnamese organizations and individuals operating in the territory of Vietnam and abroad; Foreign organizations and individuals engaged in tourist activities in the Vietnamese territory violating the regulations on tourism and travel business activities shall be administratively sanctioned according to the provisions of Chapter II of this Decree.
In particular, the case of organizations and individuals engaged in tourism and travel business will be subject to a fine of between VND 5,000,000 and VND 10,000,000 for acts of selling goods and services at prices not in the establishments. tourist accommodation.
In addition, for acts of non-civilized behavior, not respecting customs, practices and cultural identities of localities where tourists will travel, they will be fined up to VND 3,000,000; acts that are detrimental to Vietnam’s national cultural tradition may be fined up to VND 5,000,000.
New regulations of the Government on tourism service business have contributed to popularizing the spirit of protecting Vietnamese culture, images and identity, attracting and increasing domestic and foreign tourists.
On June 27, 2019, the Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has just signed Decision No. 23/2019 / QD-TTg promulgating the List of imported goods which must go through customs procedures at the import border gate. This decision takes effect from September 1, 2019 and replaces the Prime Minister’s Decision No. 15/2017 / QD-TTg of May 12, 2017.
Decision No. 23/2019 / QD-TTg with main contents related to the amendment and supplementation of the list of imported goods subject to customs procedures at import border gates
Basically, the list of imported goods still retains some items such as Decision No. 15/2017 / QD-TTg. However, some items have been modified accordingly, namely: malt-made beer, two-wheel motorbikes, complete three-wheeled motorbikes with cylinder-type internal combustion engines over 125cc; aircraft, yachts; air conditioning with a capacity of 90,000 BTU or less; votive paper …
In addition, Decision No. 23/2019 / QD-TTg has cut some items in the List of imported goods to be cleared at import border gates such as gold leaf; goods subject to animal quarantine, aquatic quarantine and plant quarantine according to the List prescribed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development; Scraps according to the list prescribed by the Prime Minister.
Decision No. 23/2019 / QD-TTg has amended and supplemented the list of items including: Imported goods from countries and territories that have warnings about the risk of disease as notified by the Ministry of Agriculture and Development Rural development; Goods in cases of application of trade defense measures and measures to prevent and avoid trade defense measures under decisions issued by the Minister of Industry and Trade.
In addition to the above contents, Decision No. 23/2019 / QD-TTg also amended and supplemented some contents about customs clearance locations and import border gates to carry out customs procedures.
Decision No. 23/2019 / QD-TTg was issued to ensure the consistency of regulations on entry border gates and the locations of customs procedures between legal documents. The adjustment of the list of goods accordingly, facilitating the business and production activities of the enterprise, and at the same time ensuring fairness among the types of businesses (domestic enterprises and enterprises) foreign invested capital) when carrying out customs procedures for the same type and category of goods. In addition, the adjustment of the list is also aimed at strengthening the management and control of imports of goods that are not encouraged to import, high-risk items, potentially vulnerable to fraud. trade, tax evasion or environmental impact.
On July 3, 2019, the State Bank issued Circular No. 07/2019 / TT-NHNN regulating safety limits and ratios in the operation of Vietnam Development Bank effective on 01 January, 2020.
Accordingly, Circular No. 07/2019 / TT-NHNN has the following outstanding contents:
– The total credit balance of Vietnam Development Bank (including State investment credit) calculated on the equity of Vietnam Development Bank must not exceed 15% for a customer , must not exceed 25% for a customer and related person, except for special projects decided by the Prime Minister.
– The total outstanding credit balance mentioned above includes the total loan balance of investment credit, export credit; outstanding loans for ODA loans; outstanding loans of other credit-granting operations of Vietnam Development Bank; guarantee balance and balance of entrusted loans for credit institutions, other foreign bank branches (including outstanding loans transferred to off-balance sheet accounting).
Thus, Circular No. 07/2019 / TT-NHNN stipulates limited details to ensure that enterprises, financially autonomous non-business units and other economic organizations use a sum of money or commit to the use of a sum of money on the principle of repayment by lending, guarantee and other credit operations according to the provisions of law.
Competition Law No. 23/2018 / QH14 adopted by the XIV National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the 5th session on June 12, 2018, takes effect from July 1, 2019. The Law consists of 10 chapters, 118 Articles.
This Law provides for acts of restraint of competition, economic concentration affecting or potentially limiting competition to the Vietnamese market; unfair competition acts; competition proceedings; handling violations of competition law; State management on competition.
One of the highlights of the Competition Act 2018 is the provision of a leniency policy. Accordingly, this is a completely new content recorded in the Law, it is seen as an effective legal tool to circumvent prohibited market restriction agreements.
Leniency is the granting of a waiver or reduction of penalties for businesses that violate competition laws but then cooperate with competition law enforcement agencies. Accordingly, the core content of this policy is to exempt or significantly reduce organizations and individuals participating in the leniency program from the risk of administrative sanctions or subject to severe penalties. but they should have suffered due to a violation of competition law.
Enterprises that voluntarily declare to help the National Competition Committee detect, investigate and deal with prohibited acts of restraint of competition stipulated in Article 12 of this Law are exempted or reduced according to the drilling policy. pink
The leniency policy applies to no more than three first enterprises applying for leniency to the National Competition Committee to meet the conditions specified in Clause 3 of this Article.
The exemption and reduction of fine levels shall be as follows:
a) The first enterprise having an application for leniency and meeting the conditions specified in Clause 3 of this Article shall be exempt from 100% of the fine level;
b) Second and third enterprises having applications for leniency and meeting the conditions specified in Clause 3 of this Article shall be reduced by 60% and 40%, respectively.
The value of the leniency policy allows competition authorities to access confidential evidence and information regarding illegal competition agreements, which in fact do not have this policy. It will be extremely difficult and time consuming to collect them in the early stages of the investigation. Therefore, leniency can be used as an additional method in collecting evidence, greatly reducing investigation costs as well as trial costs for both competition authorities and courts.
On May 24, 2019, the Government issued Decree No. 40/2019 / ND-CP amending and supplementing a number of articles of decrees detailing and guiding the implementation of environmental protection laws. The Circular takes effect from July 1, 2019.
Accordingly, only organizations and individuals with production facilities using scrap are allowed to import scrap as raw materials for production and must meet the following requirements:
– Meet the requirements and responsibilities for environmental protection;
– There are environmental impact assessment reports approved by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, including the contents of using imported scrap as production materials;
– Being granted a certificate of completion of environmental protection works or hazardous waste treatment permits;
– Having a certificate of eligibility for environmental protection in importing scrap.
Besides, the Decree stipulates that imported scrap is only allowed to be unloaded to the port when:
– In case of receiving goods on the manifest of goods, there is a certificate of satisfaction of environmental conditions in the import of invalid scraps and a volume of imported scrap;
– In case of receiving goods on E-Manifest, there is a document confirming the deposit to ensure import scrap
At the same time, the Decree supplemented the list of industrial production models that are at risk of causing environmental pollution, providing additional and replacement contents of the list of projects that must be prepared for environmental impact assessment reports. or must register an environmental protection plan; make an appeal, paying more attention to environmental protection activities in all economic activities of the country.
On July 5, 2019, the Ministry of Transport issued Circular 25/2019 / TT-BGTVT regulating the quality of technical safety and environmental protection in automobile assembly and production. The Circular takes effect from August 25, 2019.
Some notable contents in the circular:
– The Circular stipulating production and assembly cars must have a design dossier and be appraised by the Vietnam Register of Quality (QC). Models will be tested typical models. Next, the enterprise must have a dossier of registration of quality of technical safety and environmental protection of products and at the same time ensure product quality in production and assembly.
– The Circular also stipulates the order for granting technical safety and environmental protection certificates; Regulating requirements for enterprises in mass production and assembly process; Reissue Certificate of product type; Suspension of ex-works of product type and revocation of Certificate for product type; Regulations on recalling defective products …
– For regulations on quality assurance of manufactured and assembled products, the Circular stipulates that the quality control agency will perform the assessment of product quality assurance (assessing COP) according to the following methods:
+ For home-made products, the initial evaluation is carried out when issuing the Certificate of technical safety and environmental protection of product types according to the criteria stated in IATF 16949 standard. Quality management system for organizations that produce and service related automotive components.
+ Assessments in subsequent periods are conducted to assess the implementation and maintenance of quality assurance of production facilities. At this assessment, QCA will take a random sample to assess the storage of records, documents related to the product and the suitability of ex-factory products compared to the application file for registration of type-quality certificates. . The time of the next evaluation period for component manufacturing establishments is 36 months. For automobile manufacturing and assembling establishments, the subsequent evaluation period is from 12 to 36 months depending on the group of enterprises classified, determined on the basis of applying risk management in product quality management. manufactured and assembled products.
+ For components imported from a country that has a mutual recognition agreement in the field of motor vehicle quality certification, the mutual recognition agreement is followed.
In addition, Circular 25 also stipulates the regulations for domestic assembling manufacturing enterprises in the process of mass assembly, product recall, …
Circular 25 clearly stipulates the automotive quality inspection process, which is the basis for enterprises to implement, contributing to ensuring the quality of automobiles in the country as well as the environment.
On June 28, 2019, the Minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs issued Circular No. 10/2019/TT-BLDTBXH guiding the adjustment of pensions, social insurance allowances and monthly allowances for Subjects specified in Clauses 1, 2, 3 and 8 of Article 1 of Decree No. 44/2019 / ND-CP of May 20, 2019 of this Government, this Circular takes effect from August 15, 2019 .
Circular No. 10/2019 / TT-BLĐTBXH issued regulations on calculating pensions and social insurance allowances, specifically as follows:
Pension, social insurance, monthly allowance from July 2019 = Pension, social insurance, al lowance in June 2019 x 1.0719
Accordingly, from the date of July 1, 2019, the pension, social insurance and monthly allowances of the above subjects will be increased by 7.19% compared to the pension and social insurance allowance. and the monthly allowance of June 2019. Subjects of this Circular shall apply the above adjustment level, including:
+ Officials, civil servants, workers, employees and workers; Military personnel, people ‘s policemen and people working on essentials are receiving monthly pensions.
+ Officials of communes, wards and townships stipulated in Decree No. 92/2009 / ND-CP dated October 22, 2009, Decree No. 121/2003 / ND-CP dated October 21, 2003 and Decree No. 09 / 1998 / ND-CP dated January 23, 1998 of the Government enjoying monthly pensions and allowances.
+ People who are receiving monthly allowance for loss of working capacity as prescribed by law; those who are receiving monthly allowances under Decision No. 91/2000 / QD-TTg of August 4, 2000, Decision No. 613 / QD-TTg of May 6, 2010 of the Prime Minister; Rubber workers are receiving monthly benefits.
+ People who are receiving monthly labor accident and occupational disease allowance.
Adjustments to pensions and social insurance allowances are increasingly in favor of workers, when the adjustment is in the direction of high growth (7.91%) compared to the previous time. Thus, the regimes stipulated in this Circular are officially implemented from July 1, 2019.
On June 14, 2019, at the 7th session, the XIV National Assembly passed Law No. 42/2019 / QH14 amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Insurance Business and the Intellectual Property Law. This law takes effect from November 1, 2019, except the following cases take effect from January 14, 2019 (the time before this Law was enacted:
– Application for establishing industrial property rights with the filing date from January 14, 2019;
– Request to cancel the validity of Patents for invention, Patents for utility solutions, Certificates of registration of geographical indications issued on the basis of applications for establishing industrial property rights with the filing date from January 14, 2019;
– The request for invalidation of a trademark registration certificate is made from January 14, 2019;
– The lawsuit against infringement of intellectual property rights is accepted by a competent agency from January 14, 2019; Other requirements for intellectual property protection are carried out from January 14, 2019
Accordingly, Law No. 42/2019 / QH14 has amended and supplemented some following basic provisions of the current Intellectual Property Law:
– First, the legal effect with a third party on the contract of using industrial property rights (licensing contract):
Under the current Intellectual Property Law, the contract of industrial property rights is valid for the third time from the time of registration, including a trademark use contract. However, Law No. 42/2019 / QH14 amended this content in the direction: the contract of use of industrial property rights is valid for the third time from the time of registration unless the right to use the trademark.
– Secondly, on the basis of compensation for material damage:
According to the current Intellectual Property Law, there are two methods, based on the following to determine the material damage caused by infringement of intellectual property rights:
+ Total physical damage in money plus the profit that the defendant has obtained due to an infringement of intellectual property rights, if the plaintiff’s reduced profits have not been included in the total damage material;
+ The transfer price of the right to use the object of intellectual property is assumed to be transferred by the plaintiff to the right to use that object under the contract to use the object of intellectual property within the scope corresponding to the infringement. made;
However, according to Law No. 42/2019 / QH14, intellectual property right holders have the right to devise a calculation method other than the above two methods. This is an important new point, expanding the scope, methods and bases for determining material damage, because when the above mentioned bases cannot be used, the Court will determine the value of damage and value. The damage determined by the Court does not exceed VND 500 million.
– Thirdly, about the plaintiff’s liability for the defendant when the Court determines that the defendant did not commit infringement of the plaintiff’s intellectual property rights:
Law No. 42/2019 / QH14 supplemented and clarified the responsibilities of plaintiffs in case the Court determines that the defendant has no infringement acts as follows: “Organizations and individuals are defendants in the lawsuit violating intellectual property rights, if it is concluded that the Court does not commit infringement, it is entitled to ask the Court to force the plaintiff to pay him reasonable expenses to hire a lawyer or other expenses as prescribed. under the law”
Thus, Law No. 42/2019 / QH14 has amended and supplemented many important provisions of the current Intellectual Property Law, contributing to better protection of the rights of intellectual property rights owners and individuals, another organization, contributing to bringing Vietnam’s intellectual property legal framework closer to international standards and standards, including CPTPP.