Chapter 8: The award: content and form Please identify any cases, laws, official interpretations of laws, books, articles, published notes, commentaries or other authoritative sources from your jurisdiction that you would consider as a necessary inclusion in this Chapter, including whether there is any definition of an award For any identified cases, please provide a short i) paragraph on the issue(s) relevant to this Chapter Legislation Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (“New York Convention”), acceded by Vietnam on 12 September 1995 The Law on Commercial Arbitration 2010 (“LCA”) The Ordinance on Commercial Arbitration 2003 (“OCA”) The Resolution 01/2014 of the Supreme People’s Court providing guidance on the Law on Commercial Arbitration (“the Resolution” or “Resolution 01/2014”) ii) Institutional Rules Article 29 VIAC Rules: Principles for Making Arbitral Award Article 30 VIAC Rules: Arbitral Awards Article 31 VIAC Rules: Correction and Interpretation of Arbitral Award, making additional Arbitral Award Please find citations for the stated Articles in Answer to Question iii) Cases Hoa Sen v Stemcor [2011] Appellate Court – Supreme People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City Hoa Sen applied to set aside a VIAC Arbitral Award resolving its dispute against Stem Cor based on alleged bias of the Tribunal In justifying the lack of impartiality of the Tribunal, Hoa Sen explained that the Tribunal had ignored one of its submissions Both the first instance Court and the Appellate Court in Ho Chi Minh City accepted such reasoning of Hoa Sen, finding that the Arbitral Award failed to address all the point submitted by the parties and set aside the Award iv) Books Tran Hoang Hai, Do Van Dai, Collection of judgments, decisions of Vietnamese Courts on commercial arbitration, Lao Động Publisher, 2010 Tran Hoang Hai, Do Van Dai, Vietnamese law on commercial arbitration, National Political Publishing House, 2011 Nguyen Trung Tin, Commercial Disputes Resolution with foreign elements, Publisher of Social Science, 2009 Nguyen Trung Tin, Recognition and Execution of arbitration decisions and awards in Vietnam, Judiciary Publisher, 2005 v) Articles Do Van Dai, “Setting Aside Arbitral Award under Vietnamese Laws”, Collection of judgments, decisions of Vietnamese Courts on commercial arbitration, Lao Động Publisher, 2010 Please indentify and quote any rules of arbitral institutions (referred to above in question for Chapter 1) that relate to the subject matter of this Chapter The provisions of VIAC Rules relevant to the subject matter of this Chapter on Form and Content of the Arbitral Awards include: Article 29: Principles for Making Arbitral Award Article 30: Arbitral Awards Article 31: Correction and Interpretation of Arbitral Award, making additional Arbitral Award Please find below quotes of Articles 29-31 VIAC Rules: Article 29 Principles for making Arbitral Awards Where the Arbitral Tribunal comprises three Arbitrators, an Arbitral Award is made by a majority decision If there is no majority, the Arbitral Award shall be decided by the Presiding Arbitrator alone Article 30 Arbitral Awards An Arbitral Award shall be in writing and contain the following main information: a) Date, month, year and place of making the Arbitral Award; b) Names and addresses of the Claimant and the Respondent; c) Names of the Arbitrators or the name of the Sole Arbitrator; d) Summary of the Request for Arbitration and matters in dispute; summary of the Counterclaim and matters in dispute (if any); dd) Reasons for making the Arbitral Award unless the parties have agreed that no reasons are to be given; e) Determination of the dispute resolution; g) Period of time for implementing the Arbitral Award; h) Allocation of the costs of arbitration and other relevant expenses; i) Signatures of the Arbitrators or the signature of the Sole Arbitrator If an Arbitrator fails to sign the Arbitral Award, the Presiding Arbitrator of the Arbitral Tribunal shall record this in the Arbitral Award and state the reasons In such a case, the Arbitral Award shall still be valid The Arbitral Award shall be made no later than 30 days from the date on which the final hearing finishes The Arbitral Tribunal shall send the Arbitral Award to the Centre immediately after the date on which it is made The Centre shall immediately send the original or certified copy of the Arbitral Award to the parties The parties shall have the right to request the Centre to provide additional copies of the Arbitral Award and shall pay fees as provided by the Centre The Arbitral Award shall be final and binding on the parties Article 31 Correction and interpretation of the Arbitral Award; making an additional Arbitral Award Unless the parties have agreed otherwise on the period of time, within 30 days from the date of receipt of the Arbitral Award, a party may request the Arbitral Tribunal to correct any spelling, printing, or typographical error, or any error of a similar nature; any numerical error caused by a mistake or incorrect computation in the Arbitral Award, and shall immediately notify the request to the other party If the Arbitral Tribunal considers the request legitimate and there is proof that the request has been notified to the other party, it shall make a Decision on correction within 30 days from the date of receipt of the request The Arbitral Tribunal may, on its own initiative, within 30 days from the date on which the Arbitral Award is made, correct any of the above-mentioned errors and make a Decision on correction Unless the parties have agreed otherwise on the period of time, within 30 days from the date of receipt of the Arbitral Award, a party may request the Arbitral Tribunal to interpret the Arbitral Award, and shall immediately notify the request to the other party If the Arbitral Tribunal considers the request legitimate and there is proof that the request has been notified to the other party, it shall make a Decision on interpretation within 30 days from the date of receipt of the request Unless the parties have agreed otherwise on the period of time, within 30 days from the date of receipt of the Arbitral Award, a party may request the Arbitral Tribunal to make an additional Arbitral Award with respect to the issues presented during the arbitral proceedings but not yet recorded in the Arbitral Award, and shall immediately notify the request to the other party If the Arbitral Tribunal considers such request legitimate and there is proof that the request has been notified to the other party, it shall make an additional Arbitral Award within 30 days from the date of receipt of the request Where necessary, the Arbitral Tribunal may extend the periods of time for the correction or the interpretation of the Arbitral Award or the making of an additional Arbitral Award as stipulated in paragraphs 1, and of this Article respectively The Decision on correction or the Decision on interpretation or the additional Arbitral Award shall constitute part of the Arbitral Award 7 The correction or the interpretation of the Arbitral Award or the making of an additional Arbitral Award shall be subject to Article 29 and paragraphs and of Article 30 of these Rules Have there been any cases in which deliberations of arbitrators have been made public? If so please identify the case(s), briefly state the circumstances and indicate whether any sanction was made against a party or arbitrator To the extent of the authors’ knowledge, there has not any case in which deliberations of arbitrators have been made public during the arbitral proceedings There are cases where the awards were disclosed to the media during annulment proceedings such as Boith v Dai Chau or Dialasie v B.Brour However, due to the public nature of court proceedings, no parties have been sanctioned for their disclosure In Boith v Dai Chau, the parties have used the media as one of their battlefield, giving speech on the arbitration and arbitral awards consecutively at the end of 2011 Notoriously, Dai Chau even called for the support of Interpol and Vietnamese Police to investigate on the evidence submitted by Boith in the arbitral proceedings On the other side, Boith’s lawyer overtly lamented on lack of transparency in the documents Dai Chau submitted to the Court and competent authorities regarding its financial status Meanwhile, the disclosure of the case Dialasie v B.Brour may be partly due to public interests in the closure of Dialasie, one relatively famous dialasys clynic Please identify if there are any special requirements for an award in your jurisdiction For example, does the original need to be in a particular language or is there stamp duty payable on the award? Yes According to article 62 of LCA, ad hoc arbitral award must be registered at the court where the arbitral tribunal issued such award for being enforced in Vietnam Registration or nonregistration of an arbitral award shall not affect the contents and validity of such award This requirement, however, is not applicable for institutional arbitral award The special requirements for an arbitral award are prescribed in Article 61 of the LCA as follows Article 61 Contents, form and validity of arbitral award An arbitral award must be in writing and contain the following main particulars: (a) Date and location of issuance of the award; (b) Names and addresses of the claimant and of the respondent; (c) Full names and addresses of the arbitrator/s; (d) Summary of the statement of claim and matters in dispute; (dd) Reasons for issuance of the award, unless the parties agree it is unnecessary to specify reasons for the award; (e) Result of the dispute resolution; (g) Time-limit for enforcement of the award; (h) Allocation of arbitration fees and other relevant fees; (i) Signatures of the arbitrators If an arbitrator does not sign the arbitral award, the chairman of the arbitration tribunal must record such fact in the arbitral award and specify the reasons for it In such a case, the arbitral award shall still be effective Article 61 LCA is seemingly more detailed than Article 31 of Model Law concerning Forms and Contents of the Arbitral Award However, there is no mandatory content or formal requirements in Article 61 could be described as more special than comparable provisions in international practice of arbitration1 Does your jurisdiction recognise the "costs follow the event" principle? There is no provision on such matter, and in general there is also no provision on how the tribunal should allocate arbitration costs and legal expenses See Born 2010, p 2445-2507 It should be noted that the Tribunal has the wide power to allocate the arbitration fees and associated expenses,2 which infers that the Tribunal may allocate all fees and expenses on the losing parties if it is appropriate Does your jurisdiction recognise "sealed offers"? There is no provision on such matter “Sealed offers” is a practice in common law jurisdictions, and it remains to be seen whether Vietnamese tribunal and court may welcome such practice Article 30.1.h and Article 32 of the VIAC Rules, Article 61.1.h of the LCA