SINGAPORE: On Dec 3, 2024, an attraction court docket in Ho Chi Minh Metropolis upheld the primary occasion court docket’s death sentence for Truong My Lan, the bulk proprietor of Saigon Business Financial institution and former chairwoman of property developer Van Thinh Phat Group.
Among the many three primary costs towards her, it’s her embezzlement of Saigon Business Financial institution’s belongings that led to her dying penalty. In truth, Lan is the primary personal businessperson in Vietnam to be sentenced to dying on embezzlement costs.
For nearly a decade, Lan handled Saigon Business Financial institution as her personal “piggy financial institution”, typically illegally withdrawing cash from the financial institution to take a position in the actual property market. Court docket paperwork present that between October 2018 and October 2022, Lan masterminded the creation of two,527 faux mortgage information to siphon 1.07 quadrillion dong (US$39 billion) off the financial institution.
By October 2022 when she was arrested, Lan and her accomplices nonetheless owed 677.28 trillion dong to the financial institution, all of which had been categorised as unhealthy money owed.
A court docket verdict in April 2024 said that Lan’s actions brought about a lack of over 677 trillion dong to Saigon Business Financial institution. The latest attraction court docket upheld the requirement for Lan to compensate Saigon Business Financial institution for 673.8 trillion dong.
It ought to be famous that to forestall the financial institution from collapsing and inflicting potential hurt to all the banking system, the State Financial institution of Vietnam had reportedly injected US$24 billion into Saigon Business Financial institution by April 2024.
From a authorized standpoint, Lan’s dying sentence is justified by the magnitude of her embezzlement. As per the 2015 Felony Code, embezzling belongings valued at 1 billion dong can lead to a dying sentence.
Lan’s dying sentence additionally gives a powerful motivation for Lan and her household to get better at the very least three-quarters of the embezzled belongings for the financial institution. By regulation, if this effort is profitable, Lan might be able to keep away from the dying penalty.
From a regulatory standpoint, Lan’s dying sentence additionally sends a strong message to non-public financial institution homeowners in regards to the dire penalties they might face in the event that they manipulate their banks for private achieve. That is notably essential because the State Financial institution of Vietnam’s efforts to scale back cross-ownership between native conglomerates and banks haven’t yielded the specified outcomes.
