As Vietnam’s economy continues to grow rapidly and integrates into the global market, arbitration has become a common, favoured method of dispute resolution for investors, suppliers and businesses. Since the pandemic, there has been a significant rise in both domestic arbitration cases and international hearings involving parties located in Vietnam.
The trend indicates increased adoption and preference of this faster, more flexible and non-public dispute resolution method. However, at the same time, there is apparently rising concern among foreign investors and businesses over the enforcement of arbitral awards.
Legislative updates
The IFC Arbitration Centre is expected to house not only local but also international experts in finance and investment, paving the way for an “exclusive” service resolving disputes between IFC members, or between IFC members and non-members.
Resolution No. 222 also marks a milestone in Vietnamese arbitration with its unprecedented provision allowing disputing parties to waive their right to request courts to set aside arbitral awards issued by the IFC Arbitration Centre
Local courts must respect the waiver agreement, which is expected to address a longstanding concern of foreign investors and businesses about their arbitral awards being set aside in Vietnam.
It also gives parties greater freedom to resolve their disputes in a more conclusive and efficient manner, without the fear that arbitral awards may later be annulled, reflecting party autonomy in arbitration and bringing dispute resolution under the IFC framework closer to international pro-arbitration practices.
The regional courts will support local arbitrations, such as by granting orders for evidence collection, and be responsible for receiving and handling requests for recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Vietnam.
Unlike foreign arbitral awards – when enforcement in Vietnam must first undergo local recognition before a relevant Vietnamese regional court – domestic arbitral awards can be enforced directly, unless the award debtor requests a court to set aside the award.
Interestingly, regional courts do not have the jurisdiction to set aside domestic arbitral awards and register domestic ad hoc awards. Rather, this power is only vested in the provincial courts of Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City.
This is because lawmakers reportedly aim to ensure the quality and consistency of judicial reviews concerning arbitration by reserving those sensitive functions to the most experienced and well-resourced courts in those three prominent cities.
In 2024, the Amended Law on Land was adopted, articulating that disputes “arising from commercial activities relating to land” can be resolved by Vietnamese commercial arbitration. The Amended Law on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) 2020 also provides for disputes over “PPP contracts and related contracts” to be arbitrable. These are positive developments expected to boost the influx of arbitration in real estate and PPP projects.
Institutional modernisation
Draft amendments to VIAC Rules of Arbitration (2025). The VIAC is also working on a revised set of arbitration rules for 2025 to incorporate international best practices and address the practical needs of Vietnamese arbitration users. These planned developments include:
a. Draft Provisions on the Constitution of the Arbitral Tribunal in the VIAC Rules on Arbitration;
b. Draft Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct for VIAC Arbitrators;
c. Draft VIAC Arbitrator’s Statement; and
d. Draft Fee Schedule for Requests to Replace Arbitrators. The expected changes emphasise transparency and fairness in tribunal composition to establish a clearer and more equitable process for appointing arbitrators. The introduction of the code of ethics is also expected to reinforce the integrity of the arbitration process and build confidence among businesses.
Judicial trends
A growing number of arbitral awards were upheld by Vietnamese courts in the first half of 2025, demonstrating increasing support for arbitration. According to the public database of the Supreme People’s Court, in the first half of the year, local courts turned down six out of seven requests for setting aside domestic arbitral awards. This means that only one arbitral award was set aside earlier this year.
On their review of arbitral awards, local courts also appear to be moving closer to the international standards. On 7 January 2025, the Court of Ho Chi Minh City ruled that issues of contractual breaches and compensation of damages are substantive matters that fall under the arbitral tribunal’s jurisdiction. The court refused to review these issues, as well as the merits of the dispute.
A grave concern among businesses – both when enforcing domestic arbitral awards and when bringing international arbitral awards to Vietnam for local recognition and enforcement – is excessive reference by local courts to the “contrary to fundamental principles of Vietnamese laws” as a basis to set aside or refuse to recognise awards.
For example, in Decision No. 16/2025, dated 16 January 2025, the respondent claimed that the tribunal violated the parties’ equality principle by granting the claimant’s request for postponement of the hearing, while refusing the respondent’s request.
The respondent also argued that the tribunal’s rulings on the language of arbitration and late-payment interest rates were inconsistent with the parties’ contract and therefore infringed the principle of parties’ freedom of contract.
In this case, the Court of Ho Chi Minh City found that the issues raised by the respondent were properly handled by the tribunal, and the respondent failed to prove that the tribunal violated the fundamental principles of Vietnamese laws. The court ultimately upheld the arbitral award.
These decisions show an encouraging shift towards a more predictable and arbitration-friendly judicial environment.
Implications for investors
The recent legal developments are expected to give more meaningful support to arbitration and reduce the percentage of arbitral award annulments in Vietnam. However, they require investors and businesses to take greater care of their arbitration clauses and agreements if they really want to enjoy the incentives granted under the IFC arbitration framework, as well as recent positive add-ons in the Land Law, PPP Law and other updated laws.
Dispute resolution clauses must no longer be “midnight clauses” that receive insufficient consideration and as a result contain errors that may jeopardise efforts to negotiate and formulate favourable commercial teams.
The establishment of regional courts that now have jurisdiction over the local recognition of foreign arbitral awards may cast some doubts on the certainty of these being enforced against a local entity or assets in Vietnam.
However, the judicial trends and publication of court precedents lay down clear examples of the pitfalls that parties must avoid during offshore arbitration proceedings to increase their chance of eventually enforcing the awards in Vietnam. Local legal support, including a comprehensive check of local court cases on similar disputing issues, would never be “too early”, whether sought before or even during the offshore arbitration proceedings.
Source: https://law.asia/vietnam-arbitration-developments-2025/
Arbitration, and typically commercial arbitration, is an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) which is agreed by parties of the dispute. Arbitration can be used to replace the traditional way of litigation in court.
Derive from arbitration’s dispute settlement principles, arbitration shows many pros and brings many benefits for parties in commercial dispute, specifically as follows:
A Polish appeals court vacated an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) partial award for alleged irregularities in the arbitrator's appointment (for further details please see " ICC award set aside due to irregularities in arbitrator's appointment "). The sole arbitrator's final award was also successfully challenged and set aside. The first reason to vacate the final award was also the issue of the sole arbitrator's appointment.
It is normal to inspect the goods that have been lost or damaged during the performance of the sales contract and in the contract of carriage. However, improper inspection can lead to significant disputes and damages that you can refer to below.
The ten years of Law on Commercial Arbitration 2010 (LCA) are also the 10-year development period of VIAC - the first institutional arbitration organization in Vietnam, the organization that goes along with the formation and advancement of the legal framework of commercial arbitration in Vietnam.
Law on Commercial Arbitration (“LCA”) enacted in 2010 was considered a major step forward for the development of commercial arbitration in Vietnam. Compared with the previous years and with international standards, LCA has made remarkable progress, namely recognizing enterprises’ freedom of choice, broadening the scope of arbitration, raising the arbitral tribunal’s authority, valuing court assistance (especially interim measures enforcement), encouraging flexibility in language of arbitration, and improving party’s autonomy in arbitration while maintaining proper manners during arbitral proceedings.
Mr. Doug Jones, a leading arbitrator in the international arbitration community, revealed to me his infatuation with the beautiful beach and Vietnamese delicacies after a seminar in Da Nang. He was also inspired by the confidence, assertiveness, competence and the ambition to improve domestic arbitrators to the same level as those working in the international sphere of young arbitrators and VIAC Secretaries.
Law on Commercial Arbitration 2010 (LCA)- the procedural law governing arbitration proceedings whose seat is in Vietnam
Nowadays, as the digital economy emerges, electronic agreements on online websites are becoming more and more prevalent; hence, the legal effect of establishing terms and conditions of service when accessing the website (browse-wrap) and clicking (click-wrap) are of particular interest. The following paper analyzes some of the legal aspects of online agreement conclusion, especially the establishment of the arbitration agreement by means of browse-wrap and click-wrap.
Whether settling disputes in Court or through arbitration, when a party has the burden of proof, it must submit evidence to the arbitral tribunal. The evidence can be in many different forms: Document electronic evidence, audio recordings, video recordings, witness statement, etc. In international arbitration practice, especially in complex disputes, a type of evidence that is frequently used by the parties to defend their opinion/request is testimony/report of "expert witness".
In international commerce and investment, parties to a dispute often select arbitration as an alternative dispute resolution other than litigation in which the court, an authorized state agency, adjudicate disputes. An explanation for this phenomenon is that arbitration may be the optimal means that the parties can exercise their autonomy in writing to select one or several individuals who are not representing state agencies and state power (the so-called private parties) to resolve disputes. However, to prevent the possibility of arbitrators "privatizing" justice, [1] the New York Convention and the ICSID Convention set out the rules for annulment of arbitral award when such award violates arbitral proceeding. Here, questions arise. What rules of procedure are violated? And to what extent is the commercial and investment arbitral award annulled? This article seeks to elucidate the theory and practice of annulment for violations of procedure under the New York Convention and the ICSID Convention.
Goods can be consolidated, batched, packed, sorted, and grouped for a certain period of time before being loaded onto a trailer for carriage to the consignee. Disputes about whether the time to do these things are within the scope of insurance liability or not is an issue worth knowing (through the lawsuit with the documents of a foreign law firm) below for readers’ reference.
Mr. Vu Anh Duong is the Secretary General of the Vietnam International Arbitration Centre (“ VIAC “), which is the leading Vietnamese arbitration and mediation institution . Mr. Duong has contributed significantly to the development of arbitration in Vietnam in various ways; in addition to his role with the VIAC, Mr. Duong has served as a member of various drafting committees dealing with not only the VIAC’s Rules of Arbitration (2017) (“ VIAC Rules ”), but also Vietnam’s arbitration-related legislation. He also regularly lectures on commercial arbitration and sits as an arbitrator in both international and domestic commercial arbitrations.
Abstract: This discourse focuses on a detailed analysis of some theoretical and practical issues about the application of interim emergency measures involving third parties, in the field of domestic and international. Besides, the discourse provides measures to enhance the ability to enforce the decisions applying interim emergency measures with the third parties within the realm of international arbitration law. Subsequently, it extracts experience and recommendations pertaining to the legal framework in Vietnam regarding this matter.
During arbitral proceedings, the mediation process may cause some certain conflicts that requests the Arbitral Tribunal to seriously consider. Resolving effectively these conflicts based on fundamental legal principles and the arbitration skills of the Tribunal will ensure the rights and interests of disputing parties and third parties. This discourse focuses on analyzing potential conflicts and providing recommendations to the Tribunal to maximize the effectiveness of the mediation process and reduce conflict occurrence.
.png)
According to the Department of Judicial Support , Ministry of Justice, currently , there have been 48 arbitration institutions established in our country, with over 600 arbitrators participating in resolving thousands of commercial disputes each year 1 . An arbitration service has been developed. Along with the growth , the trait of this service became more apparent , includi ng the relevance of third-party interests. Unlike court litigation, in principle, arbitration is a private dispute resolution method , therefore, the involvement of third parties is exceptional. The discourse discusses how the arbitral tribunal considers and guarantee s the third party's interest in the arbitra l proceedings by providing some situations in which disputing parties or the arbitral tribunal may need to consider the interests of third parties. The goal of arbitr ation is to make contributions to resolving disputes fairly, thereby encourag ing parties to fulfill their obligations voluntarily in order to avoid further dispute escalation of disputes . Based on the analysis , the author suggests policy improvements pertaining to third parties that may be considered in the upcoming revision of the Law on Commercial Arbitration.
In August 2024, the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA) formally published the second edition of the ICCA’s Guide to the Interpretation of the 1958 New York Convention. The Guide is a clear, concise yet inclusive handbook, written in plain language, on the essential aspects of the scope, interpretation and application of the Convention. Though principally aimed at judges determining applications under the Convention, the Guide, which benefits from the extensive practical and academic experience of its authors (prominent arbitrators and ICCA members) will also be of interest to students, teachers and practitioners as an introduction to the Convention.
Asia Business Law Journal recently conducted research and announced the list of Vietnam's Top 100 Lawyers in 2024, which includes 19 Listed Arbitrators of Vietnam International Arbitration Center (VIAC) and Listed Mediators of Vietnam Mediation Centre (VMC) – a division of VIAC.
On 28 th October 2025, Mr. Vu Anh Duong, Permanent Vice President cum Secretary General of VIAC, shared his perspective at the Asia Civil law Summit, held as a part of events series under the Seoul ADR Festival – SAF 2025. Organized by the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board (KCAB), the event brought together a large number of experts from leading law firms, corporations, arbitration institutions, and mediation organizations across the region and around the world.
As Vietnam’s economy continues to grow rapidly and integrates into the global market, arbitration has become a common, favoured method of dispute resolution for investors, suppliers and businesses. Since the pandemic, there has been a significant rise in both domestic arbitration cases and international hearings involving parties located in Vietnam.
.png "Trường đại học ngoại thương"){kind=logo}
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
