CYIL vol. 15 (2024)

LANH DINH CAO, TRINH THI HONG NGUYEN 1. Collection of Court Judgments

The study consults the Electronic Portal of the Supreme People’s Court for Announcing Judgments and Decisions. 5 This judgment announcing portal significantly increases public access to court decisions and thereby increases transparency to court adjudication. As of 17 Feb 2023, there are 1.072.492 published judgments and decisions. However, as this study seeks to identify judgments in international commercial contracts, it encountered difficulties. The portal has not counted and reported international commercial contract judgments separately. They are mixed within the category of judgments on commercial contracts and since they are not labeled as “international” they cannot be conveniently found using a keyword search. According to CPC 2015, Vietnam has 63 provincial courts that have jurisdiction to adjudicate international commercial contract disputes. Due to the fact that we are unable to do a simple keyword search for international disputes, this study narrows the scope of its search to the three courts that presumably adjudicate the most international contractual disputes: Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi city, and Binh Duong Province. 6 Accordingly, in the search engine of the Portal, we selected the following three provincial courts: Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi City and Binh Duong City. Furthermore, we refined the results from each court by selecting the following search terms: judgments; business and commercial disputes; and, first instance judgments. From the results of each provincial court, we scan the judgments one by one to locate those on international contractual disputes. By doing so, the study has been able to identify the following judgments: Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court: 1. Judgment No 792 /2018/KDTM-ST dated 20 June 2018 regarding disputes on a sales contract between a Hong Kong plaintiff and a Vietnamese defendant. The decision cited Art 469 CPC 2015 but did not specify the clause. Link: https://congbobanan.toaan.gov.vn/2ta427559t1cvn/chi-tiet-ban-an 2. Judgment No 872 /2018/KDTM-ST dated 05 July 2018 regarding disputes on a sales contract between a Taiwanese plaintiff and a Vietnamese defendant. The decision did not mention Art 469 CPC 2015 and only cited articles of domestic jurisdiction from Chapter III of the CPC 2015. Link: https://congbobanan.toaan.gov.vn/2ta844796t1cvn/chi-tiet-ban-an 3. Judgment No 973 /2018/KDTM-ST dated 20 July 2018 regarding disputes on an insurance contract between a Vietnamese plaintiff and a Korean defendant. The decision cited Art 469.1.dd & e and Art 469.2 CPC 2015, ruling that the contract was partially performed in the territory of Vietnam (Art 469.1.dd) and that the plaintiff, the insurance beneficiary, is Vietnamese, therefore, this case involves the 5 Link https://congbobanan.toaan.gov.vn/. Resolution No. 03/2017/NQ-HĐTP dated March 16, 2017 of the Supreme People’s Court requires courts judgments and decisions to be published on the Supreme People’s Court’s Electronic Portal for Announcing Judgments and Decisions. This administrative rule took effect July 1, 2017. 6 Nguyen Chi Cong and Pham Thi Hang, Một số kinh nghiệm và bài học cho Việt Nam trong việc hỗ trợ các tòa án xét xử các tranh chấp hợp đồng thương mại quốc tế có hoặc không có điều khoản lựa chọn pháp luật [Some experiences and lessons for Vietnam in assisting the courts adjudicating international contractual disputes having or not choice of law clause], Conference proceedings: Đ i ề u ki ệ n c ầ n và đủ để áp d ụ ng pháp lu ậ t n ướ c ngo ài [Necessary and sufficient conditions to apply foreign law in civil trial in Vietnamese courts], 218–232, 219.

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