On March 3, 2021, two new types of license became available to operators of securities businesses in Thailand, following the enactment of an amendment to the ministerial regulation regarding securities business licensing in Thailand, which was announced by the Ministry of Finance four months prior. While existing license types are broader, and subject to high-level conditions and compliance levels, the two new licenses are more specific and may be more suitable and cost-effective for operators whose activities are limited to a narrower scope of securities business. The details of the two new license types—the Type E Securities Business License and the Private Fund Management License—are as follows: Type E Securities Business License A Type E Securities Business License covers the following business activities: Equity brokerage Equity dealing Equity underwriting Investment advisory service Securities borrowing and lending Operators eligible to apply for a Type E License include: securities companies; commercial banks; life insurance companies; special-purpose financial institutions; and, Thai incorporated companies. Private Fund Management License Previously, business operators who only intended to conduct private fund management business had to apply for a Type C license—a broad category of license covering mutual fund management, private fund management, brokerage for investment units or trust certificates, and so on. The new Private Fund Management License provides a more targeted alternative to the Type C license, which is subject to higher license fees and more comprehensive compliance requirements. New applicants for a securities business license may now specify one of the additional license types when applying to the Ministry of Finance through the SEC. Holders of existing securities business licenses can also apply to change to one of the new license types.

Attorneys from Tilleke & Gibbins’ office in Hanoi have written the Vietnam chapter for Getting the Deal Through – Licensing 2021, a comparative guide to licensing law and practice in 18 countries around the world. Licensing 2021 provides an overview of a wide range of licensing relationships, including licensing of copyrights, trademarks, and patents; software licenses; technology transfer agreements; and franchise agreements. The book also addresses issues of royalties and other payments, taxes, competition law, and termination of licensing relationships. The Vietnam chapter was authored by Linh Thi Mai Nguyen, Son Thai Hoang, and Chi Lan Dang of Tilleke & Gibbins’ trademark team, along with corporate and commercial attorney Tu Ngoc Trinh, who has extensive experience in franchising and competition law. The Vietnam chapter is available below as a PDF. Tilleke & Gibbins also contributed the Thailand chapter to Licensing 2021. To browse all 18 jurisdictions covered by the guide, please visit the Getting the Deal Through website.

Getting the Deal Through – Licensing 2021, published by Law Business Research (part of the Lexology network), provides a comprehensive guide to licensing in 18 countries around the world with contributions by several leading international law firms. Alan Adcock, partner and deputy director of intellectual property, Siraprapha Claassen, consultant, and Kasama Sriwatanakul, attorney-at-law from Tilleke & Gibbins’ Bangkok office, co-authored the Licensing 2021 Thailand chapter, which covers the following topics: Laws: Unfair Contract Terms Act, Trade Competition Act, pre-contractual disclosure, registration of international licensing, implied obligations, Civil and Commercial Code, Trademark Act, Patent Act, and Trade Secrets Act. Intellectual property issues: Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, PCT, TRIPs. Contesting the validity of licensor’s IP rights, invalidity and expiry of IP rights, evidence of use, licensing unregistered IP, opposability requirements, sub-licensing, co-owners, trade secrets, and copyright. Software licensing: perpetual licensing, import/export restrictions, improvements and modifications, user restrictions, and legal developments. Competition law: Trade Competition Act, specific restrictions on licensing agreements, and significant court decisions. Indemnification, disclaimers, and damages: prevalence and enforceability of indemnity provisions and contractual waivers of damages. Termination: conditions, indemnity, agency, and impact on sub-licenses. Bankruptcy: impact of licensee bankruptcy on licensor and vice versa, protection, and rights to terminate. Dispute resolution: governing law, arbitration, enforcement, injunctions, contractual waivers Royalties and payments: currency conversion, tax, remittance restrictions, and jurisdiction-specific payments. The Thailand chapter is available below as a PDF. Tilleke & Gibbins also contributed the Vietnam chapter to Licensing 2021. To browse all 18 jurisdictions covered by the guide, please visit the Getting the Deal Through website.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a significant increase in the popularity of electronic meetings among businesses across the world, as physical meetings became unfeasible due to government lockdowns and regulations limiting gatherings to limit the risk of further spreading the disease. In Thailand, this turn of events has resulted in the promulgation of a new electronic meeting law to modernize rules that facilitate the convening of corporate entities’ statutory meetings as required under Thai law. Electronic meetings in Thailand have been permitted to some degree since June 27, 2014, when the Announcement of the National Council for Peace and Order No. 74/2557 on Teleconferences through Electronic Means B.E. 2557 (2014) first allowed the practice, subject to various restrictions. However, many companies considered two strict requirements under this announcement to be impractical: at least one-third of the quorum for the electronic meeting had to physically attend the meeting at the designated meeting venue, which implies that no more than two-thirds of the quorum could choose to attend the meeting via electronic means; and all participants of the electronic meeting (whether attending electronically or in person) had to be physically present in Thailand at the time of the meeting, which effectively prohibited overseas participation. New Rules for Electronic Meetings The new electronic meeting law, the Royal Decree on Teleconferences through Electronic Means B.E. 2563 (2020), came into effect on April 19, 2020, replacing the 2014 order and relaxing its most onerous limitations in order to facilitate meetings of directors and shareholders via electronic means during the COVID-19 pandemic. The key relaxations codified by the royal decree include allowing all attendees to attend meetings via electronic means, such as by phone or videoconferencing, from anywhere in the world. Furthermore, there is no longer a physical attendance requirement, and notices (and enclosures)