Mr. Nguyen Van Hoa talks about the enforcement of civil judgment in the Truong My Lan case

At the workshop "Suggestions for amending the Law on Civil Judgment Enforcement - Solutions for handling assets in the enforcement of economic cases", organized by Ho Chi Minh City Law Newspaper on May 14, Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Civil Judgment Enforcement Department Nguyen Van Hoa shared his experience in civil judgment enforcement in the Truong My Lan case.

"Need to coordinate to clarify the nature of assets and cash flow right from the investigation stage"

According to Mr. Hoa, through experience from the Truong My Lan case, the Ho Chi Minh City Civil Judgment Enforcement Department has coordinated well with agencies C03 - Ministry of Public Security , courts, prosecutors and lawyers to clarify the nature of assets and cash flow right from the investigation stage to achieve high efficiency.

Mr. Nguyen Van Hoa, Director of the Civil Judgment Enforcement Department of Ho Chi Minh City

PHOTO: NGUYET NHI

In addition, the Director of the Civil Judgment Enforcement Department of Ho Chi Minh City also noted the difficulty that at the trial stage, the court did not pay attention to the nature of the property but only based on the indictment and investigation conclusions to pronounce the verdict, leading to many difficulties in the execution of the judgment when handling the property.

For example, the verdict declares that the property belongs to the offender, but in reality it is owned by someone else, leading to disputes; the project license expires due to a prolonged investigation; there are no regulations on handling assets formed in the future; the process of handling shares and stocks through auditing or through valuation...

"We have repeatedly proposed to develop a separate process for handling assets in economic and corruption cases to take advantage of each stage of investigation, prosecution and trial. This is to ensure effective asset recovery. However, this is still a matter that needs to be discussed and perfected," Mr. Nguyen Van Hoa added.

In 3 years, Ho Chi Minh City enforcement agency recovered over 50,000 billion VND

According to Mr. Hoa, in the past, in corruption and economic cases, the enforcement of judgments mainly focused on the crime and punishment. However, currently, the enforcement of judgments pays special attention to the issue of asset recovery.

The Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Civil Judgment Enforcement Agency said that the enforcement of economic and corruption judgments in Ho Chi Minh City accounts for a high percentage. In the past 3 years, the Ho Chi Minh City Judgment Enforcement Agency has recovered over 50,000 billion VND, accounting for 76-96% of the total value of recovered assets nationwide.

For economic and corruption cases, in addition to focusing on the crime and punishment, the value of recovered assets is important. Recovery results in recent years have shown clear changes; however, there are still many shortcomings, due to the prolonged investigation, prosecution and trial stages, unclear legal nature, and many subjects trying to disperse assets...

Currently, the Ho Chi Minh City Civil Judgment Enforcement Department is coordinating with the investigation agency to enforce the judgment on handling assets before sentencing in accordance with the spirit of Resolution 164/2024 on piloting the handling of evidence and assets during the investigation, prosecution, and trial of a number of criminal cases.

"There are still many shortcomings in asset valuation"

Regarding the shortcomings in asset valuation, lawyer Phan Trung Hoai, Vice President of the Vietnam Bar Federation , said that requiring valuation units to survey and collect information about similar assets from the media when applying the comparison method will lead to concerns about the legality and authenticity of these sources of information.

Not to mention in some cases, the valuation certificate is required not only by the prosecution agency, the enforcement agency, but also at the request of the legal entity, the litigant has a difference in the valuation value from the valuation units in the list provided by the Ministry of Finance, then how is the determination of the price of the real estate for auction resolved?

Lawyer Phan Trung Hoai, Vice President of Vietnam Bar Federation

PHOTO: NGUYET NHI

Regarding the actual implementation and application, lawyer Hoai cited the example in the Truong My Lan case where there were more than 1,166 assets used as collateral for loans.

Of these, only more than 726 asset codes were valued and the valuation results of the companies also differed by more than 193,000 billion VND. In addition, there are many assets such as stocks, future assets that are not considered for valuation while these assets have very large values.

In addition, there is also a difference in the valuation results of real estate of valuation companies. According to lawyer Hoai, there have been cases that have been resolved but when comparing the valuation results of two valuation companies, there is a huge difference, affecting the criminal responsibility of the accused as well as the execution process.

From there, lawyer Hoai proposed that there should be a mechanism to handle assets that are in the process of being formed or have not been legally completed; to value assets according to market prices; to establish an asset handling council for major cases; to perfect regulations on collecting objective information, determining the time of valuation, and to provide specific guidance on valuation of specific assets, ensuring consistency and benefit to criminals. For example, the Prime Minister has established a Steering Committee for asset recovery in the case that occurred at Van Thinh Phat Group.

In the first-instance verdict, the High People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City sentenced defendant Truong My Lan to death for embezzlement, 20 years in prison for bribery, and 16 years in prison for violating lending regulations in the operations of credit institutions. The total sentence is death.

Regarding civil liability, the court ordered defendant Lan to be responsible for compensating SCB Bank for the outstanding debt of 1,243 remaining loans as of October 17, 2022, equivalent to VND 673,800 billion.

Regarding the second-phase appeal verdict, the High People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City sentenced defendant Truong My Lan to 20 years in prison for fraud and appropriation of property, 12 years in prison for money laundering, and 8 years in prison for illegal cross-border currency transportation. Combined with the death sentence in the first phase of the case, defendant Lan must serve a combined sentence of death.

Regarding civil liability, the panel determined that all the money embezzled from the bond issuance was transferred by the defendants to defendant Lan for personal use, so defendant Lan must be responsible for compensating for damages. The court continued to seize the assets of Ms. Lan and her family, related to the wrongdoing, to ensure the execution of the judgment.

Regarding the issue of execution of judgments, based on Official Dispatch No. 1948/CTHADS-NV2 of the Ho Chi Minh City Civil Judgment Enforcement Department, as of March 24, in terms of cash, there was more than VND 8,659 billion in the account of the Ho Chi Minh City Civil Judgment Enforcement Department and in frozen accounts. There was more than VND 15,383 billion that individuals and organizations had to pay to Ms. Truong My Lan. The total amount according to Official Dispatch 1948 was more than VND 24,043 billion.

Thanhnien.vn

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/ong-nguyen-van-hoa-noi-ve-thi-hanh-an-dan-su-vu-truong-my-lan-185250424164335456.htm