On September 25th, 2021, the Government issued Decree No. 85/2021/ND-CP amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No. 52/2013/Nd-CP dated May 16th, 2013, on e-commerce. Accordingly, Decree No. 85/2021/NĐ-CP amends and supplements several important articles as follows:
- Supplementing e-commerce activities of foreign traders and organizations:
This is a completely new regulation of Decree 85/2021/ND-CP. Accordingly, a foreign trader or organization that has a website providing e-commerce services in Vietnam is a trader or organization involved in one of the following forms of operation: (i) E-commerce website under the Vietnamese domain name; (ii) E-commerce website whose display language is Vietnamese; (iii) E-commerce website with over 100,000 transactions from Vietnam within a year.
- Amending and supplementing the operation forms of the e-commerce trading floor:
Including: (i) Website allowing users to open shops to display and introduce goods or services; (ii) Website allowing users to open accounts to enter into contracts with customers; (iii) Website having a sale and purchase section/function, which allows users to post information about their goods and services; and (iv) A social network involved in one of the above activities and the users directly or indirectly pay fees for the performance of such activities.
- Providing detailed regulations on registration procedures for authentication of e-contracts:
Regarding the authentication of e-contracts, according to Clause 4, Article 63 of Decree 52/2013/ND-CP, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is responsible for stipulating in detail the procedures for establishment and operation regulations of traders and organizations providing e-contracts authentication services; providing cases of revocation of operating licenses; and procedures and sequences for amending, supplementing and withdrawing operation licenses of these traders and organizations.
Until now, the new Decree 85/2021/ND-CP has first provided the detailed registration procedures for providing e-contracts authentication services. Accordingly, the submission, receipt and handling of registration applications for providing e-contract authentication services will be carried out online by the Ministry of Industry and Trade through the e-commerce management portal of the Ministry of Industry and Trade at www.online.gov.vn.
- The seller’s responsibility for providing information about their goods and services:
According to the new regulations, the information about goods and services for sales e-commerce websites must be provided in detail by sellers, specifically as follows:
(i) For goods and services published on the website, the seller must provide information so that the customer can accurately identify the characteristics of the goods or services in order to avoid misunderstandings when entering into a contract.
(ii) Information about goods published on the website must contain contents required to show on labels of goods in accordance with the laws on good labels, except for product-specific information such as: year, month, date of manufacture; expiry; production batch number; the frame of the machine.
(iii) Sellers must meet the investment and business conditions on the list of conditional investment and business lines and must publish the number, date and place of issuance of the eligibility license, confirmation on qualifications, written confirmations, or other forms of documents as prescribed by law on business conditions of that industry.
- Adding the subject of e-commerce activities is the provider of logistics service:
Traders providing logistics services are officially recognized as a subject of e-commerce activities. Along with that, the responsibilities of logistics service providers to transactions on e-commerce platforms are also mentioned in Clause 14, Article 1 of Decree 85/2021/ND-CP.
Decree No. 85/2021/ND-CP will be of full force and effect as of January 1st, 2022.
Download the Legal update as a PDF here.
