In July 2016, the National Assembly XIV of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam approved inclusion of the Project on Competition Law (amended) in the 2017 Agenda on Law and Ordinance Construction.

Currently, the Ministry of Industry and Trade takes lead in building the Draft Law with following key amendments and supplements:

1. Expand the governing scope, the amended Competition Law shall also cover anti-competitive acts that are conducted outside the territory of Vietnam but shall or might have anti-competitive effects on Vietnam’s market.
2. Expand the subjects of application which shall also cover domestic and foreign organizations and individuals including State agencies, public service institutions and industry associations in addition to business organizations and individuals.
3. Apply “rule of reasons” approach regarding anti-competitive agreements and inclusion of the leniency program to enhance detection, investigation and settlement of anti-competitive agreements.
4. Supplement other criteria to assess market power of enterprises in addition to the current criterion – market share.
5. Control economic concentration based on assessing competition impact instead of per se prohibition based on the combined market share threshold of involving parties (like the current law). At the same time, the amended law shall cover criteria to determine notification threshold in economic concentration cases including the criterion on the total revenue in Vietnam and the value of the economic concentration transactions.
6. Remove the illegal multilevel sales act from the governing scope of unfair competition acts.
7. Conduct institutional reform to enhance the legal status of the competition agency which shall be the National Competition Commission under the Government.

The Draft is now publicized on websites of the Government and the Ministry of Industry and Trade and available for comments and remarks from the business community as well as relevant agencies/organizations before refinement and submission to the Government for opinions this July.

Source: http://www.oecdkorea.org/resource/htmlconv/2017/07/competition_20170707143234_0.pdf.htm