THE INTERPRETATION AND APPLICATION OF THE NEW YORK CONVENTION 1958 FOR RECOGNITION AND ENFORCEMENT OF FOREIGN ARBITRAL AWARDS IN VIETNAM

JTHE INTERPRETATION AND APPLICATION OF THE NEW YORK CONVENTION 1958 FOR RECOGNITION AND ENFORCEMENT OF FOREIGN ARBITRAL AWARDS IN VIETNAM

JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 05, 2020 THE INTERPRETATION AND APPLICATION OF THE NEW YORK CONVENTION 1958 FOR RECOGNITION AND ENFORCEMENT OF FOREIGN ARBITRAL AWARDS IN VIETNAM Ho Ngoc Hien, 2Nguyen Thi Thu Trang Vice Dean of Law Department of the Graduate Academy of Social Science Phd Candidate at the Graduate Academy of Social Science and Counsel at Dzungsrt & Associates LLC ABSTRACT: The recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Vietnam is still a concern to foreign award debtors because of the inconsistency in interpretation and application of the New York Convention and the tendency to favour local parties of Vietnamese courts This article aims at examining the differences in between Vietnamese laws and the New York Convention and addressing some outstanding practical issues involving the implementation of the New York Convention in Vietnam Key words: arbitration, arbitral award, New York Convention, Vietnam, recognition and enforcement INTRODUCTION The 2020 marks 25 years as from the time that Vietnam has acceded to the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral (“the New York Convention”), which has been described as the most important and successful United Nations treaty in the area of international trade law with more than 160 members The Convention was designed to “facilitate the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards” (ECOSOC, 1985) and allow national courts to develop durable, effective means for enforcing international arbitration agreements and awards (Born, 2018) However, after 25 years, Vietnam has been regarded as a jurisdiction where it is difficult to enforce foreign arbitral awards (Reyes and Gu, 2018) Therefore, the issue of recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Vietnam is now becoming one of the most concerns of many domestic and foreign enterprises So, what are the reasons for such problem? How the New York Convention provisions were adopted in Vietnam ? How it works in practice? Are there any notable issues with regards to the recognition and enforcement in Vietnam? This article aims at clarifying these questions Accordingly, the authors want to bring a comparative view of the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Vietnam, the most concerned issues, and the best way forward To be specific, the first part of this article will examine the differences between Vietnamese laws and the New York Convention, while the second part will address how the New York Convention is interpreted and applied by Vietnamese courts when considering the application for recognition and enforcement in practice Lastly, the authors also proposed some solutions to improve the implementation of the New York Convention and to increase the number of foreign arbitral awards could be enforced in Vietnam RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 2.1 A COMPARISON OF THE RECOGNITION AND ENFORCEMENT REGIME UNDER VIETNAMESE LAW AND THE NEW YORK CONVENTION The Convention was first implemented in Vietnam through the 1995 Ordinance on Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards which has been replaced by provisions of the 2004 Civil Procedural Code, as amended in 2011 (“the 2011 CPC”) As of July 2016, the 2011 CPC shall be expired and be replaced by the new Civil Procedure Code dated 25 November 2015 (“the 2015 CPC”) Besides the 2015 CPC, the Convention was also implemented in Vietnam through the 2008 Law on Enforcement of Civil Judgment, as amended in 2014 (“the LECJ”) However, there are notable deviations between the Vietnamese laws and the New York Convention as being elaborated below 2191 JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 05, 2020  The scope of application of the New York Convention in Vietnam Article I.1 of New York Convention clarifies the scope of application of the Convention, which includes “arbitral awards made in the territory of a state other than the State where the recognition and enforcement of such awards are sought and arising out of differences between persons, whether physical or legal It shall also apply to arbitral awards not considered as domestic award in the State where their recognition and enforcement are sought” By making the reciprocity and commercial reservations, Vietnam has also restricted the scope of application of the New York Convention Accordingly, to be considered for recognition and enforcement in Vietnam, the arbitral award must satisfy three criteria: (i) it is considered as “an arbitral award”; (ii) it must be “a foreign award” and (iii) it arises from the commercial disputes With regard to the first criterion, the New York Convention does not define what would be considered as an “arbitral awards” This suggests that it is up to the courts of the contracting states where the recognition and enforcement is sought to determine when a decision can be characterized as an “arbitral award” under the New York Convention (UNCITRAL Secretariat, 2016) In practice, it is widely accepted by member states’ courts that a partial award, awards on jurisdiction, consented awards also revolves the disputes between parties in a final manner As such, they are enforceable under New York Convention Some courts even have held that an interim or partial award amounts to an “award” within the meaning of the Convention, if it finally determines at least part of the dispute referred to arbitration (UNCITRAL Secretariat, 2016) However, Vietnamese law distinguishes between an arbitral decision and an arbitral award As provided in Article of the Law on Commercial Arbitration (“the LCA”), only decisions which settle the entire dispute and terminating the arbitral proceedings could be considered as “arbitral awards” Article 424.2 of the CPC 2015 also provides that foreign arbitral awards which shall be considered for recognition and enforcement in Vietnam are final ones of the arbitral tribunal that resolve all the contents of the dispute, finish the arbitral procedures and are effective Accordingly, interim orders and partial awards are not qualified as arbitral for recognition and enforcement under Vietnamese laws With regard to the territorial criterion, it is widely accepted that the nationality of an award is based on the seat of arbitration i.e where the award is rendered However, pursuant to Art (12) of LCA, “foreign arbitral award means an award rendered by foreign arbitration either inside or outside the territory of Vietnam in order to resolve a dispute as agreed by the parties” As such, in Vietnam, whether an arbitral award is considered as a foreign award or not does not depend on the seat of the arbitration Instead, it depends on the nationality of the arbitral institution or the arbitral tribunal Accordingly, an arbitration seats in Vietnam but it is administered by an arbitral institution establish outside of Vietnam, e.g International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) or Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) shall still not be considered as a Vietnamese award In other words, it is considered as a “non-domestic” arbitration in Vietnam Regarding the “commercial” criterion, as provided by the Commercial Law 2005 of Vietnam, “commercial activities” are defined as activities for profit-making purposes including sale and purchase of goods, services, investment, trade promotion, etc It is noted that pursuant to Article of the LCA, it remains unclear about whether non-contractual claims can be arbitrable under the law of Vietnam Arguably, as long as one of the disputing parties is engaged in commercial activities, non-contractual claims can be arbitrable However, reportedly there has not been any non-contractual claim resolved by arbitration in Vietnam to shed light on this matter In our experience, so far only one dispute arising from a settlement agreement in connection to a collision in Vietnamese waters has been settled by arbitration Besides, it is widely accepted that a dispute may be considered as non-arbitral if it falls within the exclusive jurisdiction of Vietnamese courts under Article 470 of the Civil Procedure Code, which including among others, civil lawsuits involving rights to properties being immovables in the Vietnamese territory Clearly, the above provision has limited the scope of application of the New York Convention in Vietnam  The burden of proof Pursuant to Article V of the New York Convention and Article 459 of the CPC 2015, the award debtor shall bear the burden of proof that the arbitral award falls within one of the grounds for refusal of recognition and enforcement Whereas, the award creditor only needs to submit an authenticated original or a certified copy of the arbitral award and the arbitration agreement when applying for recognition and enforcement This provision was incorporated in Article 453 of the CPC 2015 It should be noted in the past, since the previous version of the CPC, being the CPC 2005, fails to clarify the burden of proof of the party opposing the enforcement of the award, some courts still wrongly requested the award creditors to provide documents showing that the award does not fall within one of the grounds for refusal of recognition and enforcement Such situation has been improved as from the CPC 2015 came into effect Article 459.1 of the CPC 2015 clearly states that “The Court shall not recognize a foreign arbitrator’s award when deeming that the evidences provided by the judgment debtors to the Court for appealing against the application for recognition are well-grounded” However, in practice, Vietnamese award debtors frequently request the court to 2192 JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 05, 2020 impose the burden of proof on award creditors as part of the application for recognition and enforcement The courts have rarely ruled on this issue and in fact, however, judges may be eager to require award creditors to furnish documents to establish that their applications have not fallen into one of the exceptions for recognition and enforcement For example, when considering a Swiss arbitral award in 2018, the High People’ Court in Ho Chi Minh City held that: If the award debtor does not acknowledge that the notice has been received, they have to prove the failure for receiving the arbitral notices However, there is no evidence to determine that [the award debtor] has been duly informed of the above At the appellate hearing, the lawyer of the award debtor said that in practice, it is rare that the award debtor proves that they have not received the notices Instead, the award creditor has to bear to the burden of proof of the proper services of papers and documents, to show that they have notified the award debtor” The Court accepted this argument and denied recognizing and enforcing such award Such decision of the court is clearly inconsistent with the provision of Article IV and V of the New York Convention and the provision of the CPC 2015  The grounds for refusal of recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards Article 459 Civil Procedure Code 2015 sets out nine (09) grounds to refuse recognition of foreign arbitral awards which resemble Article V New York Convention However, the violation of “public policy” under Article V(2)(b) of New York Convention is replaced by the violation of “fundamental principles of Vietnamese law” The violation of the fundamental principles of Vietnamese laws is also referred as a ground for setting aside against domestic awards Therefore, it is essential to examine the interpretation of this notion in the annulment of Vietnamese awards and in the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards In the context of setting aside against Vietnamese arbitral awards, pursuant to Article of Resolution No 01/2014/NQ-HDTP of the Supreme People’s Court of Vietnam (Resolution 01/2014), the fundamental principles are defined as “basic principles on conduct, whose effects are most overriding in respect of the development and implementation of Vietnamese law” and “the arbitral award is only annulled by the court if the court recognizes the arbitral award seriously infringe upon the interest of the State, the lawful rights and interests of either party or third party” To clarify this notion, the Supreme People’s Court listed some examples including the principle of freedom and freewill to reach an agreement in commercial activities as provided in Article 11 of the Commercial Law and Article of the Civil Code, coercion, fraud, threat or bribery, etc However, the above interpretation is still too broad and unclear in the view of local judges Whereas, there is no official guidance on how to apply this ground in the context of refusal for recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards It is Vietnamese judges who have full discretion to interpret this term and therefore, its application is considered on case by case basis only In the past, the Vietnamese Courts used to rely on this ground to refuse to recognize and enforce foreign arbitral awards As such, there was an opinion that a mere breach of Vietnamese law by itself may have amounted to a violation of fundamental principles of Vietnamese law (Garnett and Nguyen, 2006) Nevertheless, the interpretation of this term under the Resolution 01/2014 helped to clarify the application of this ground Also, it is arguable that the same interpretation of the “fundamental principles of Vietnamese laws” in the context of setting aside Vietnamese arbitral awards under the Resolution 01/2014 should also be applied by the court when considering the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards to ensure the unification of this notion under Vietnamese laws as well as the “national treatment” between Vietnamese awards and foreign awards as required by the New York Convention Still, as mentioned above, the guidance under the Resolution 01/2014 is too broad and unclear Recently, the Supreme People’s Court is drafting a new Resolution guiding provisions on recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards (the Draft Resolution) Under the Draft Resolution, the circumstances where the fundamental principle of Vietnamese laws is deemed as being violated are clarified as follows: (i) The recognition of such awards violates sovereignty, national security, social order and safety, social morality, and community health; (ii) The foreign arbitral award is declared on the basis of coercion, deception, threat, or bribery; or (iii) The foreign arbitral award does not record the voluntary agreement of the involved parties on the method of dispute settlement Accordingly, it is expected to rectify the misunderstanding and incorrect application of the Vietnamese courts in this matter and thus, decrease the risk that the foreign arbitral awards are refused to be enforced in Vietnam on this ground Unfortunately, since the Draft Resolution has not come into force, the guidance thereunder has not bound the Vietnamese Courts yet 2193 JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 05, 2020 2.2 THE INTERPRETATION AND APPLICATION OF THE NEW YORK CONVENTION IN PRACTICE Upon the recent Report of the Ministry of Justice of Vietnam, from 01 January 2012 to 30 September 2019, only 39 out of 84 foreign awards (accounting for 46.4%) were recognized and enforced in Vietnam (Ministry of Justice, 2020) After the CPC 2015 came into force, there are 23 application for recognition and enforcement of foreign award were enrolled, but only 11 applications were accepted (accounting for 47.8%) The percentage of arbitral awards were rejected to be recognized and enforced in Vietnam has been remarkably decrease from 46% to 21% after the CPC 2015 took effect The most common ground invoked by Vietnamese Court to deny recognizing and enforcing foreign awards relate to the incapacity of the person signed the arbitration agreement, the improper service of documents, the violation of fundamental principles of Vietnamese laws (Ministry of Justice, 2020) Even though the enforcement and recognition of foreign arbitral awards in Vietnam has improved after the CPC 2015 took effect, the number of awards being recognized and enforced is still low compared to other countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, etc Accordingly, it appears that in practice, the Vietnamese Court have not adopted the pro-enforcement approach under the New York Convention, which is against the intention as well as the commitment of Vietnam at the time of ratifying the Convention To be specific, the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Vietnam still have the following problems:  Prolonging the procedure for recognition and enforcement Article 451.1 of The CPC provides that the time limit for application for recognition of foreign arbitral award in Vietnam is years starting from the date the foreign arbitral award takes effect The time needed for recognition at first-instance stage as stipulated by the CPC is around 06 months To be specific, in accordance with Art 455 of the CPC, within 05 working days as from the date of receiving the application dossier, the courts must accept the files and notify the award debtors as well as a Public Prosecutor of the same level Within 02 to 04 months as from the date of accepting the requests, the competent courts shall decide whether to open hearing sessions to consider the petitions, temporarily suspend or suspend the consideration of the application for recognition As stipulated by the CPC, the Courts must open a hearing to consider the requests within 20 days as from the date of issuing the decision to open such hearing However, in practice, the actual time of the first instance level would expect to be from 06 to 08 months or even up to a year depending on the complexity of the case as well as the schedule of the judge handling the case Furthermore, the first instance decision of the court could be appealed, and the Appeal Decision could also be revisited under cassation review procedure Therefore, the total time to obtain the final decision on recognition and enforcement of a foreign arbitral award in Vietnam could take years  Wrongful application of grounds for refusal of recognition and enforcement It should be noted that after more than 20 years as from the time Vietnam ratified the New York Convention, Vietnam has not had any detailed guidance on how to interpret and apply the grounds for refusal of recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards As the result, the courts also face the difficulties in interpreting and applying the relevant laws and regulations to settle the case, especially when the issue should be considered under foreign laws, for example, the law governing the validity of the arbitration agreement, the law governing the capacity of the foreign parties, etc In particular, the Arbitral Award might also face the risk of rejection for recognition and enforcement if the Vietnamese Court somehow finds that the parties’ representative does not have capacity to sign the contract and arbitration agreement under the law applicable to each party contract under Article 459.1(a) of CPC 2015 and Article V.1(a) of New York Convention However, in practice, the Vietnamese Court often imposes their understanding on the signatory capacity of Vietnamese party in accordance with the laws of Vietnam to explain the signatory capacity of the award creditor which is regulated in accordance with the foreign law, not Vietnamese law For example, in Decision no 117/2014/QD-PT dated 07/08/2014 of the Appellate Court of the Supreme People’ Court in Hanoi, the Court used to rely on the Certificate of Business Registration to conclude that the certificate did not indicate the name of the person signed the contract and the arbitration agreement on behalf of the award creditor, such person did not have capacity to so Even though the award debtor provided the Letter from its representative directors and the Affidavit of an English qualified lawyers confirming that under English law as the applicable law, such person has full capacity to conclude the contract, the award was still be rejected for recognition and enforcement The decision of Court disregarded the law governing the capacity of the award creditor and was only based on its own interpretations of the Certificate of Business Registration Similarly, another common ground to object the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards under Article 459.1(c) of CPC 2015 and Article V.1(b) of New York Convention This ground is often raised by the award debtor especially in ex-parte arbitration proceedings where the respondent does not participate in the arbitration, but they were still notified of the proceedings The award creditor is thus, often required to provide the court with evidence proving that the award debtor has actually received these notices of the arbitral tribunal e.g the 2194 JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 05, 2020 receipt, minutes of delivery, etc., rather than evidence of serving, e.g the express waybill of the couriers For example, in a Decision in 2016, the People’ Court of Hanoi rejected to recognize a GAFTA award because “The delivery of documents from GAFTA to [the award debtor] is in compliance with the New York Convention However, pursuant to Article 176 of CPC 2015 regarding the service of documents and notice via electronic means, there is no ground to determine that [the award debtor] has received the documents, including the arbitral awards from GAFTA Moreover, the implementation of this provision has not been guided by the Supreme People’s Court of Vietnam” As such, instead of considering the validity of service of document under the law of the seat i.e English Arbitration Act 1996 and the GAFTA Arbitration Rules, the Hanoi Court relied on the requirement for service of document under the CPC 2015, which is designed for the court procedure  No particular explanation on the fundamental principles of Vietnamese law: As mentioned above, the violation of fundamental principles of Vietnamese law is one of the grounds for refusal of recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards It could be said that the notion of “the fundamental principles of Vietnamese law” is the local adaption of “the public policy” ground under Article V of the New York Convention and is based on domestic rather than international standards However, currently, there is no legal document of Vietnam particularly listing which are the fundamental principles of Vietnamese law in the recognition context Therefore, the local court has been quite arbitrary in interpreting and applying this ground In practice, the Vietnamese courts used to invoke this ground to review the tribunal’s ruling on the merits of the case To be specific, in 2011, the Appellate Court in Hanoi upheld the first instance decision and turned down the request for recognition and enforcement of an arbitral award of the Grain and Feed Trade Association (“GAFTA”) because the award was considered as contrary to the fundamental principles of Vietnamese laws The Court reasoned that, the damages awarded to the award creditor were not actual and direct The Court also found that the award debtor should not be held liable for damages as its failure to open L/C had been due to force majeure The GAFTA Award, therefore, was contrary to the principles concerning damages under Vietnamese commercial law Recent years, the courts have become more sophisticated Instead of picking up a certain provision of Vietnamese law and treating it as a fundamental principle of Vietnamese law, they have shown a tendency to link a substantive issue in the award to a more well-recognized “fundamental principle of Vietnamese law” Still, it is concerned that a decision on substantive issues as mentioned above could still lead to a violation of principle of impartiality and independence in arbitration from the local judges’ view  Courts’ review on the merits of the foreign arbitral awards In principle, as prescribed by Article 458(4) of the CPC, the Vietnamese Courts, while considering a foreign arbitral award for recognition and enforcement, are not allowed to re-visit the merit of the case In theory, they can only examine and compare the award and the application dossiers with the relevant provisions of the CPC, other Vietnamese laws and international treaties which Vietnam has signed or acceded to, for making a ruling Nevertheless, in fact, some local judges have a tendency to decide based on their assessment, in light of Vietnamese law, of the merits of the case, at least on aspects relating to the legal capacity and authority of the contracting parties and the forms of the involved contracts In 2014, the Appellate Court of Ho Chi Minh City refused to recognize and enforce an award of the International Cotton Association on the ground that the basis for calculation of damages under the award is inconsistent with Vietnamese Law on Commerce even when the governing law is English law The Court noted that the tribunal based on estimated damages but not actual damages and that the award creditor failed to mitigate damages The decision on the damages of the tribunal is clearly an substantive issue that should not be revisited by Vietnamese courts Nevertheless, the court relied on the vagueness of “the fundamental principles of Vietnamese law” to review the merits of the case Furthermore, under Article 459(1)(d) of the CPC which is an adoption of Article V(1)(c) of New York Convention, the court shall refuse to recognize a foreign arbitral award if the award deals with disputes which are not requested by the parties or exceed the request of the parties If the decisions on matters requested by the parties can be separated from those not requested, that part of the award which contains decisions on matters requested by the parties may still be recognized However, in practice, there is no reported case where the Vietnamese courts only refused to recognize and enforce a part of foreign arbitral awards This may be one of the reasons why the number of foreign awards being recognized and enforced in Vietnam is still low RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION After more than 20 years being a member of the New York Convention, Vietnam has improved its legal regime for the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Vietnam It is noteworthy that the CPC 2015 and the Draft resolution has had many amendments and clarification which reflect a more pro-enforcement approach of the courts and Vietnamese Government In fact, many foreign arbitral awards have been recognized and enforced by 2195 JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 05, 2020 Vietnamese courts where the New York Convention and the CPC 2015 were correctly applied the provisions of to protect the legitimate rights of the parties However, besides these above achievements, Vietnamese is still considered as an arbitration-unfriendly country, where the enforceability of the arbitral awards is uncertain Whereas, it should be noted that the refusal of a National Court to recognize and enforce a foreign arbitral award does not invalidate the arbitration award in the remaining 157 member states of the New York Convention, but the consequences of refusing to recognize and enforce the foreign arbitral awards based on unwarranted and inconsistent interpretation and application of the New York Convention will cause many direct and indirect damages for the governments, the economies, and the arbitration development therein In fact, wrongful refusal to enforce foreign arbitral awards could become the ground for a contract-based arbitration escalated into a treaty-based arbitration against Vietnamese government (Nguyen and Nguyen, 2018) The authors are of the view that it is needed short and mid term-solutions to recur such situation, and to so, it requires the changes in both legislation and the court’s attitude First, even though the substantial contents of the New York Convention have been incorporated in the CPC 2015 of Vietnam, there are still some notable discrepancies which lead to the inconsistency of the court when considering the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards As a result, it is necessary for the Vietnamese government to review and complete all legislative documents involving the recognition and enforcement of Vietnamese laws, including but not limited to the CPC 2015, the Law on Commercial Arbitration, the Resolution 01/2014, etc., to be in compliance with the provision and purpose of the New York Convention Especially, the determination of “foreign arbitral award” should be based on the only criterion i.e seat of arbitration rather than the nationality of the arbitration center Further, the fundamental principles of Vietnamese laws should be replaced by the public policy or at least, should be interpreted in line with the notion of “public policy” under the New York Convention With regard to other grounds for denial of recognition and enforcement, the Supreme People’s Court and the Ministry of Justice should cooperate and issue a Resolution or detailed guidance on the interpretation of these grounds to avoid the subjective interpretation and arbitrary application of the local courts in this matter Secondly, the way in which some Vietnamese courts refused of recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards are far from being in line with the New York Convention 1958 The reasons for this problem are not only the lack of detailed guidance but also the negative attitude of the local courts toward foreign arbitration The court’s awareness regarding the relations between the court and the arbitration, the judicial support of the court toward the arbitration have not been received much attention The Supreme People’ Court and the Ministry of Justice should organize more workshops to enhance the knowledge and raise the awareness of the local judges in this matter It is also suggested to enhance the international cooperation with other arbitration-friendly countries such as Hong Kong, Singapore or France and invite their experts to train the judges, lawyers and law students to foster the next generation equipped with knowledge, skills and experiences in this matter With the above short-term resolutions, it is expected that the unreasonable and inconsistent interpretation and application of the New York Convention in Vietnam will be evaded soon Nevertheless, it undoubtedly will take time to see the achievement REFERENCES Born, Gary B (2018) , The New York Convention: A Self-Executing Treaty, Michigan Journal of International Law, Volume 40, Issue 1, p 115 Council of Judges of The People’s Supreme Court, Resolution no 01/2014/QH-HDTP guiding for the Law on Commercial Arbitration issued on 20 March 2014, Hanoi Garnett, Richard & Nguyen, Kien Cuong (2006), Enforcement of Arbitration Awards in Vietnam, Asian International Arbitration Journal, (Kluwer Law International 2006, Volume 2, Issue 2) p 143-145 Ministry of Justice (2020), Report on assessment and comparison between the provisions of Vietnam and the UNCITRAL Model Law regarding the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards, Proposal for application of the Model Law in Vietnam, 15 June 2020, Hanoi Nguyen Manh Dzung and Nguyen Thi Thu Trang (2018), International Investment Dispute Resolution in Vietnam: Opportunities and Challenges in Julien Chaisse and Luke Nottage, International Investment Treaties and Arbitration Across Asia, Brill Nijhoff, p 280-302 2196 JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 05, 2020 Reyes, Anselmo & Gu, Weixia (2018), The developing World of Arbitration: A comparative Study of Arbitration Reform in the Asia Pacific, Bloomsbury Publishing The Appellate Court in Ho Chi Minh City (2014), Decision No 31/2014/QDPT-KDTM dated 10/06/2014 The Appellate Court of the Supreme People’ Court in Hanoi (2014), Decision no 117/2014/QD-PT dated 07/08/2014 The High People’ Court in Ho Chi Minh City (2018), Decision 25/2018/QDKDTM-PT dated 28 June 2018 The National Assembly of Vietnam, Civil Procedure Code no 92/2015/QH13 promulgated on 25 November 2015, Hanoi The National Assembly of Vietnam, Law on Commercial Arbitration no 54/2010/QH12 promulgated on 17 June 2010, Hanoi The People’ Court of Hanoi (2016), Decision 201/2016/KDTM-PT of dated 15&16/11/2016 UNCITRAL Secretariat (2016), Guide on the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, the United Nations, New York, from: https://www.uncitral.org/pdf/english/texts/arbitration/NYconv/2016_Guide_on_the_Convention.pdf United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) (1995), Travaux Préparatoires, Report of the Committee on the Enforcement of International Arbitral Awards, E/2704, E/AC.42/4/Rev.1 (29 March 1985), from: https://undocs.org/E/AC.42/SR.4, p United Nations, Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Award, 1958, New York 2197 ... recognition and enforcement, are not allowed to re-visit the merit of the case In theory, they can only examine and compare the award and the application dossiers with the relevant provisions of the. .. light of Vietnamese law, of the merits of the case, at least on aspects relating to the legal capacity and authority of the contracting parties and the forms of the involved contracts In 2014, the. .. Convention and Article 459 of the CPC 2015, the award debtor shall bear the burden of proof that the arbitral award falls within one of the grounds for refusal of recognition and enforcement Whereas, the