Vietnam Bidding Law of 2023: 9 Changes

The Vietnam Bidding Law of 2023, effective from January 1, 2024, signifies an important step forward in reforming institutional frameworks and managing bidding activities in Vietnam. This law not only broadens its application scope and refines regulations on prohibited behaviors in bidding but also introduces several new elements aimed at enhancing efficiency, transparency, and fairness in bidding transactions.

Brief summary of 9 notable amendments in the 2023 Vietnam Bidding Law.

1. Expanded Scope of Application in Vietnam Bidding Law: The new law broadens its scope, including additional subjects and fields to ensure that all bidding activities occur under a unified and transparent legal framework.

2. Specific Regulations on Prohibited Behaviors: The new Vietnam Bidding Law updates and details a list of behaviors banned during the bidding process to prevent fraud, corruption, and enhance fairness and transparency.

Examples include bid rigging:

• Arranging, agreeing, coercing one or more parties to prepare or withdraw bid documents for a party to win the bid;
• Arranging agreements to refuse to provide goods or services, not sign subcontracting contracts, or conduct other forms of agreements to limit competition for a party to win the bid;
• Contractors or investors with capability and experience who participate in bidding and meet the tender document requirements but intentionally do not provide documents to prove capability and experience when requested by the tenderer to clarify the bid documents or when asked to compare documents, facilitating a party to win the bid.

Example of bid obstruction:

• Destroying, deceiving, altering, concealing evidence, or falsely reporting; threatening or suggesting to any party to prevent the clarification of acts of giving, receiving, brokering bribes, fraud, or collusion with competent, authoritative supervision, inspection, audit, and auditing agencies;
• Obstructing the competent person, project owner, tenderer, contractor, investor in selecting contractors, investors;
• Obstructing the competent authority’s supervision, inspection, auditing, and auditing activities in bidding;
• Intentionally complaining, denouncing, and proposing falsehoods to obstruct bidding activities;
• Engaging in illegal acts regarding cybersecurity to interfere with or obstruct online bidding.

3. New Regulations on Bid Cancellation: The law introduces new regulations on bid cancellation, clarifying cases and necessary procedures to cancel a bid package, protecting both buyers and sellers’ interests.

4. Direct Bid Appointment: The new law clarifies cases where direct bid appointment is allowed, reducing the misuse of direct appointment without competitive bidding.

5. Update on Competitive Bidding Packages: The Vietnam bidding law improves regulations on competitive bidding packages to enhance transparency and fairness in contractor selection.

6. Amendments to Bid Pricing Regulations: These amendments aim to enhance accuracy and fairness in determining bid prices through clear and objective criteria.

7. New Regulations on Selecting Healthcare Service Providers: This new point facilitates the fair and transparent selection of healthcare service providers, thereby improving the quality of healthcare services.

8. Strengthened Inspection, Supervision, and Bidding Control: The Vietnam bidding law strengthens measures for inspecting, supervising, and controlling bidding activities to ensure legal compliance and prevent fraud.

9. Development and Application of Technology in Bidding: The Vietnam bidding law encourages the development and application of technology in bidding processes, from tender advertising, submitting documents, to evaluating and selecting contractors, to enhance efficiency and transparency.

In summary, the 2023 Vietnam Bidding Law marks a significant turn in improving Vietnam’s bidding environment through the introduction of new regulations aimed at increasing fairness, transparency, and efficiency.

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