New Vietnam Law on Bankruptcy has been voted and approved by Vietnam National Assembly on Jul 19th, 2014 and is expected to make contribution to resolve the current problems about requirements of the enterprises, cooperatives which declare bankruptcy; to ensure equality in protecting the interests of the State, the legitimate rights and obligations of enterprises, cooperatives, individuals, agencies.

Vietnam National Assembly approves the Law on Bankruptcy No.51/2014/QH13 including 14 chapters and 133 articles regulating the orders and procedures of application, accepting, and opening of bankruptcy proceedings; identifying property obligations and measures to preserve properties during the bankruptcy proceeding; procedures for recovery operations; bankruptcy declaration and enforcement of the decision to declare bankruptcy. This law applies to enterprises and cooperatives, cooperative unions which are established and operate in accordance with law.

Under the Vietnam Law on Bankcruptcy, unguaranteed creditors, partially guaranteed creditors will be entitled to submit a petition for commencement of bankruptcy proceedings on expiration of 03 months from the due date of due debts that enterprises, cooperatives does not perform payment obligations (Article 5.1).

The legal representatives of enterprises, cooperatives are obliged to submit the petition for commencement of bankruptcy proceedings if businesses, cooperatives are unable to pay (Article 5.3).

Private enterprise owner, Chairman of BOD of JSC, Chairman of the Board members of an LLC with two members or more, the owner of an LLC with one member, general partner of the partnership company are obliged to submit petition for commencement of bankruptcy proceedings if the enterprise is unable to pay (Article 5.4).

Shareholder or group of shareholders owning from 20% of the common shares during at least 06 consecutive months shall be entitled to file a petition for commencement of bankruptcy proceedings when a JSC loses its solvency. Shareholder or group of shareholders owning less than 20% of the common shares during at least 06 consecutive months shall be entitled to file a petition for commencement of bankruptcy proceedings when a JSC loses its solvency in the case that there are company charter provisions (Article 5.5).

Cooperative members or legal representatives of the cooperative members of cooperative unions have the right to file a petition for commencement of bankruptcy proceedings when cooperatives, cooperative unions lose their solvency (Article 5.6).