VIETNAM Trends and Developments Contributed by: Stephen Le Hoang Chuong, Le & Tran
erty right, which should be identified as property; hence, the wrongful appropriation of Bitcoin is an act of robbery. From a civil law perspective, Vietnamese law does not currently recognise cryptocurrency as property. However, from the perspective of criminal science, the crime of robbery is a crime identified by acts. In the context of the afore- mentioned criminal case, the suspects per- ceived cryptocurrency as money or property, and this perception influenced their decision to commit the robbery. Their plan to rob the victim, combined with the use of force and awareness of their actions to carry out unlawful appropria- tion, aligns with the definition of robbery under criminal law. Previously, Joint Circular No 02/2001/TTLT- TANDTC-VKSNDTC-BCA-BTP dated 25 Decem- ber 2001, guiding a number of regulations on property infringement crimes, confirmed that robbery is a crime identified by acts and con- sidered the value of the appropriated property: “In cases where there are sufficient grounds to prove that the person committing an act of prop- erty infringement intends to infringe upon the property of specific value according to their sub- jective consciousness, the value of that property will be used to consider the criminal prosecution of the person who commits the act of infringe- ment...”. Although the above document expired on 8 October 2021, it provides specific guidance on how to determine the crime in this case. However, in 2017 the Court of Ben Tre prov- ince heard the first case regarding tax arrears on Bitcoin. Specifically, an individual made a cryptocurrency transaction via a bank account and the authority demanded personal income tax from this individual for the cryptocurrency transaction. Accordingly, this individual filed an
administrative lawsuit against the authority’s decision. Judgment No 22/2017/HC-ST, found that “[up] to now, there has not been any legal document governing digital money (cryptocur- rency) as goods or services used for produc- tion, business, and consumption”. Accordingly, the Court of Ben Tre province determined that cryptocurrencies are generally not property or goods, according to the 2005 Civil Code and Commercial Law. As such, if we refer to Judgment No 22/1017/ HC-ST of the Court of Ben Tre, which does not recognise cryptocurrency (including Bitcoin) as a means of payment, the prosecution of the 16 defendants would have no basis. In the end, the court ruled that the Ho Chi Minh City defendants had successfully converted some of the stolen Bitcoin into VND18.8 billion in currency and, in addition to lengthy prison sen- tences, were compelled to jointly compensate the victim in this amount. As such, the court was able to award compensation without declaring that the cryptocurrency was “money” or “prop- erty”. From the above analysis, Vietnamese law does not currently have a legal framework to govern the issuance, purchase, sale, and exchange of cryptocurrency and virtual assets, nor does the law assign a specific authority to manage the issuance and trade of cryptocurrency and vir- tual assets. Therefore, in Vietnam, the trade and exchange of cryptocurrency via international platforms such as Binance, Coinbase, and oth- ers, or even by face-to-face agreement, pose significant potential risks.
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