Foreign brands are increasingly popular in the Vietnam market as Vietnam economy integrates into world economy.The openings of economy creates opportunities to attract foreign investment into Vietnam through establishment of companies. To continue to protect the fair competition, and interest of consumer, it is important that the Vietnam state authority ensures the business environment. Accordingly, violations related to competition will be handled in accordance with the law.

Acts of violation of competition under Vietnam laws are defined in Article 1 of Decree 71/2014 / ND-CP, including: violations of regulations on control of acts of restraint of competition; acts of violating regulations on acts of unfair competition; violations of other provisions of law on competition. According to the provisions of law, the above acts shall be subject to the forms of punishment and fine. The most common and most powerful impact on businesses and consumers are the violation of unfair competition.

In practice, there are a number of instances where unfair competition acts are associated with intellectual property rights violations, which have a significant impact on business activities of enterprises in the same field; violation of business secrets; activities of advertising that are prohibited i.e. make direct comparison against competitor, provide falsified or confused information to consumers…

If committed acts of unfair competition, the violator will be subject to fine level from VND 10,000,000 to VND 140,000,000. At the same time, additional measures and remedies will be applied, depending on the seriousness of the breach, such as the revocation of the enterprise registration certificate; deprivation of the right to use licenses or practice certificates; confiscation of material evidences and means used to commit the violation, including the confiscation of profits earned from the commission of the violation; to restructure the enterprise, rectify to the public…

From the management of state authority, the detection and handling of unfair competition acts create conditions for enterprises to have equal opportunities in the market economy. From the enterprise’s perspective, it is important to continuously review its business activities in Vietnam to ensure compliance to competition law by its lawyers.

Provisions on announcing of business information are stipulated in various laws and degrees in Vietnam, allowing the interested party to be searching for business purpose for information in regard to investment registration certificate number, business registration certificate number and others information.

In particular, after the enterprise being granted an enterprise registration certificate, it shall carry out procedures to publish it on a portal as per procedures and pay the related fees for administration. The application for publication of enterprise registration information is a compulsory procedure, made at the time an enterprise submits its enterprise registration dossier. The content to be published includes the contents on the enterprise registration certificate and the lines of business. In addition, joint stock companies with foreign investors will need to provide information including founding. In case of changes in enterprise registration contents, the corresponding changes must be publicly announced.

Also, an enterprise must publish information in one of the forms posted on the business information network of the business registration agency or one of the written or electronic newspapers in three consecutive issues. The main content to be published includes: Company’s name; Address of the head office of the enterprise, branch or representative office; Lines of business; Charter capital of limited liability company and partnership company; number of shares and value of contributed capital and number of shares to be issued with joint stock company; initial investment capital for private enterprises; legal capital for enterprises conducting lines of business requiring legal capital; Full name, address, nationality, ID card number, passport or other legal personal identification number, establishment decision number or business registration code of the owner, member or shareholder foundation; Full name, permanent address, nationality, ID card number, passport number or other legal personal identification of the legal representative of the enterprise; Place of business registration.

For publication fees, the enterprise registration fee and the enterprise registration content announcement fee are VND 100,000/time.

There are some enterprises that do not need to publish their business information on the portal before going into operation, but make other forms of announcing i.e. on newspaper or other media. For instance, law-practicing organizations must publish on daily newspapers of central or local registry of law practice or newspaper for three consecutive issues. For credit institutions, foreign bank branches, representative offices of foreign credit institutions and other foreign institutions engaged in banking activities, they must be published on the State Bank’s media and in a daily newspaper written in 03 consecutive issues or an electronic newspaper of Vietnam at least thirty days prior to the scheduled date of operation of opening information.

In addition to disclosing corporate information, there is also a procedure for disclosure of information on the stock market that is applicable to public companies and bond issuers (except for government bond issuers and bonds), government-guaranteed bonds and local government bonds), securities companies, fund management companies, branches of foreign fund management companies in Vietnam, public funds complying with law on securities detailing information disclosure, announcing on the company’s website and information disclosure system of the Securities Commission.