In our digital world, transactions through e-commerce trading floor applications, or apps (“Application”) have become indispensable as the Vietnamese e-commerce market continues to expand to a wide range of goods and services, and grows rapidly. However, this strong development poses challenges and responsibilities for the competent authority of the State in ensuring compliance from traders and organizations that own the Applications.
This article, which presents information about the provisions of Vietnamese law regarding Applications, will help readers gain a better understanding about this legal matter.
1. What documents are included in the dossier for registering an Application?
Pursuant to Circular No. 59/2015/TT-BCT, amended and supplemented by Circular No. 01/2022/TT-BCT (“Circular No. 59”), traders and organizations that own an Application are responsible for registering the Application with the Ministry of Industry and Trade for approval to provide e-commerce trading floor services. Accordingly, Circular No. 59 has specified documents for the Application registration procedure, including:
- A form for registering the Application;
- An establishment decision (for organizations), enterprise registration certificate, investment certificate or investment license (for traders);
- An e-commerce service provision scheme;
- Regulations on the management of the Application’s operations;
- A model service contract or a cooperation agreement between the trader or organization owning the Application and traders, organizations and individuals engaged in trading or organization of auctions or sales promotion of goods and services on the Application; and
- General terms applicable to trading activities or organization of auctions and sales promotion of goods and services on the Application (if any).
In addition, during the process of reviewing the functions of the Application, the competent authority may request to provide information related to the policies of the Application, such as information security, goods/services purchase and sale policies, returns, payments, etc. Traders and organizations owning the Application should prepare these documents in advance.
2. What steps are included in the Application registration procedure?
The Application registration procedure with the Ministry of Industry and Trade is similar to the procedure of registering a website providing e-commerce services according to Circular No. 47/2014/TT-BCT, amended and supplemented by Circular No. 01/2022/TT-BCT (“Circular No. 47”). Specifically, traders and organizations owning the Application must perform four steps in the following sequence:
- Step 1: Traders and organizations register for the account on the E-commerce Activities Management Information Portal;
- Step 2: After being granted an account to log into the system, traders and organizations should select the “Đăng ký Ứng dụng CCDV” function (which translated to Register service provision application), fill in the forms as instructed and attach the documents listed in Item 1 mentioned above;
- Step 3: After receipt of the notice confirming adequacy and eligibility of the documents, traders and organizations shall send a complete Application registration dossier (hard copy) to the Ministry of Industry and Trade – the E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency for the assessment of the hard copy dossier;
- Step 4: Within 05 working days after the receipt of a full and eligible hard copy of registration documents, those hard copy documents match the documents and information declared online via the user account, the Ministry of Industry and Trade shall send to traders and organizations via registered emails a code segment for insertion into the Application and displayed on-screen as Registered. When selecting this icon, users will be led to the respective registration information about traders and organizations on the E-commerce Activities Management Information Portal.
According to our experience from actual cases, the in-charge officers of the E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency often conduct a thorough review of the Application’s functions and often request the traders and organizations owning the Application to provide explanations or make adjustments during the Application review process.
3. How to periodically report on the status of e-commerce activities of the registered Application?
Under Circular No. 59, traders and organizations that own the Application are obliged to periodically report as prescribed in Article 20 of Circular No. 47. Accordingly, traders and organizations that have registered websites providing e-commerce services as well as an Application must report to the Ministry of Industry and Trade the statistics about the operational status of the previous year by one of two following methods:
- Online method via E-commerce Activities Management Information Portal; or
- Method of sending reports in written form by post service.
Furthermore, according to information posted on the E-commerce Activities Reporting System, the E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency will request traders and organizations owning the Application to conduct annual reports on e-commerce activities online at baocao.online.gov.vn.
Accordingly, traders and organizations owning the Application should pay attention to following the requirements of the E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency to comply and avoid the termination of the Application’s registration information and being listed as violators on http://www.online.gov.vn. If the statistical data report on the Application’s operation is not submitted within the time limit or at the request of competent authorities, administrative fines ranging from 2,000,000 VND to 10,000,000 VND shall be imposed on the organization owning the Application.
The above is not official advice from BLawyers Vietnam. If you have any questions or suggestions about the above, please contact us at info@blawyersvn.com. BLawyers Vietnam would love to hear from you.
Date: 10 September 2024
Writer: Thai Bui
