Eleven laws and codes started taking effective from January 1st, 2021
From January 1st, 2021, the eleven following laws and codes started taking effective, includes:
- Law on Investment 2020
- Law on Enterprise 2020
- Labour Code 2020
- Law on Public-Private Partnership Investment 2020
- Law on Securities 2019
- Law amending and supplementing a number of Articles of Law on Judicial Expertise 2020
- Law on Mediation and Dialogue at Court 2020
- Law amending and supplementing a number of Articles of Law on Construction 2020
- Law amending and supplementing a number of Articles of Law on Promulgation of Legislation Documents 2020
- Law on Youth 2020
- Law on amending and supplementing a number of Articles of Law on Organization of National Assembly 2020
In the above documents, the most notable is the Law on Conciliation and Dialogue At Court 2020.
Previously, according to the Civil Procedure Code 2015 and the Law on Administrative Procedures 2015, conciliation procedures (applicable to civil cases) or dialogue (applicable to administrative cases) at The Court shall be held only after the Court issued a “Decision on acceptance of settlement of the case”. However, with the new provisions in the above-mentioned Law on Conciliation and dialogue at Court, besides the conciliation procedures conducted after the lawsuit has been accepted for handling, this Law provides regulations on order, procedures, timeframe, methods and costs for opening conciliation sessions, dialogues at the Court, rights and obligations of the parties participating in the mediation, and for dialogues before the Court issue the said Decision. It can be considered a new milestone, in order to save time and costs for the involving Parties, as well as support them to facilitate the proceedings to unify conciliation and dialogue for resolving the case more quickly.
Notably, in the provisions on mediation procedures, dialogue at Court under the Law on Conciliation and Dialogue at Court 2020, there are provisions on the rights of the Parties to choose whether they should participate in the conciliation and/or dialogue or not. In case they take part in this process, they shall not bear any burden of costs associated with this activity. Meanwhile, the procedure for conciliation and/or dialogue after the Court accepts the case is mandatory (except in some special cases as prescribed in laws). Even though the parties are successful in obtaining an agreement through such conciliation and/or dialogue, either of the parties still has to bear 50% of the court fee.
Accordingly, the parties when having disputes, particularly disputes over intellectual property rights, can refer to the conciliation and/or dialogue before the Court accepts handling the lawsuit as per the guidance of this Law.