VIETNAM Law and Practice Contributed by: Vinh Luu, Phong Tran, The Nghiem and Thu Nguyen, Asia Legal
One of the principal grounds for refusing recognition or enforcement is that the award is contrary to the fundamental principles of Vietnamese law. Vietnam - ese law adopts this domestic standard rather than the concept of international public policy applied in some jurisdictions. Although the legislation does not define the term exhaustively, Vietnamese courts gen - erally interpret it as referring to the core legal princi - ples underpinning the Vietnamese legal system, rather than any violation of ordinary mandatory rules. Accordingly, when considering the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, Vietnamese courts apply a domestic public policy standard based on the “fundamental principles of Vietnamese law”, rather than an international public policy standard. 13. Miscellaneous 13.1 Class Action or Group Arbitration Vietnamese law does not provide for class action arbitration or for any representative, opt-in or opt-out group arbitration mechanism of the kind available in a small number of other jurisdictions. Multiple claimants or respondents can participate in a single arbitration only through consolidation or joinder and only where all relevant parties consent or a valid multiparty arbitration agreement already exists. On a separate note, the VIAC Rules 2026, discussed in 13.4 Consolidation , have strengthened the insti - tutional mechanics available for consolidation and joinder in multi-contract and multiparty disputes, but this remains fundamentally different from a true class mechanism, which Vietnamese arbitration law simply does not recognise. 13.2 Ethical Codes Arbitrators are bound by the statutory independence, impartiality and disclosure obligations in Article 21 of the LCA, supplemented by institutional codes such as VIAC’s own Code of Ethics for Arbitrators. Vietnam - ese licensed lawyers acting as counsel are separately subject to the Law on Lawyers and the Vietnam Bar Federation’s Rules of Professional Conduct, which cover conflicts of interest, confidentiality and candour
toward the tribunal, broadly comparable in substance to professional conduct rules in other jurisdictions. Foreign counsel appearing without a Vietnamese practising licence, a common scenario given the flex - ibility described in 7.4 Legal Representatives , are not directly bound by these domestic professional rules. They are, however, generally expected to comply with the ethical rules of their own home jurisdiction and with any institutional guidelines the parties or tribunal choose to adopt, such as the IBA Guidelines on Party Representation in International Arbitration where the Vietnam has no dedicated statute regulating third- party funding. However, the LCA neither expressly authorises nor prohibits such practice, leaving the relationship between the funder and the funded party to be governed by general contract law principles rather than any arbitration-specific regime. parties agree to apply them. 13.3 Third-Party Funding In addition, the VIAC Rules 2026 introduce the first meaningful institutional response to third-party fund - ing in Vietnam, requiring disclosure of the existence and in many cases the identity, of a funder so that arbitrators can properly assess potential conflicts of interest. This approach mirrors similar developments recently introduced in other major institutions’ own 2026 rules, including the ICC. Beyond this disclosure obligation, questions such as a funder’s potential liability for adverse costs or any requirement for a funder’s consent to settlement, remain to be devel - oped through future rule changes or case law and funding arrangements should accordingly be reviewed carefully, case by case, in the absence of comprehen - The LCA historically provided no general statutory consolidation mechanism, a genuine gap by compar - ison with more developed institutional frameworks, so consolidation was achievable in Vietnam primarily by party agreement rather than by any default rule. The VIAC Rules 2026 substantially close this gap, introducing express provisions on the consolidation of related arbitrations and multi-contract disputes, subject to conditions such as the compatibility of the sive statutory guidance. 13.4 Consolidation
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