On August 26, 2020, the Vietnamese Government issued Decree No. 99/2020/ND-CP stipulating penalties for administrative offenses in the petroleum sector, and in the petrol, oil, and gas trading sector. Decree 99 will take effect on October 11, 2020, replacing Decree No. 67/2017/ND-CP dated May 25, 2017.Decree 99 stipulates that the maximum fine in the sector of exploration and production of petroleum is VND 1 billion (approx. USD 43,000) for an individual and VND 2 billion (approx. USD 86,000) for an organization.

On August 14, 2020, the government of Vietnam issued Decree 91/2020/ND-CP on fighting against spam text messages, spam email, and spam calls. The new decree will take effect on October 1, 2020, replacing Decree 90/2008 on anti-spam and all of its amendments. In general, Decree 91 retains the essential rules on anti-spam regulated in Decree 90, but expands the scope of application and provides stricter measures in controlling spam.

The Myanmar Customs Department (MCD) organized another Intellectual Property Awareness and Product Identification Workshop at its Customs Training School in Yangon on August 6, 2020, for its frontline customs officers. Such workshops are held numerous times every year, serving as a platform for foreign brand owners and their local representatives to educate and update the enforcement officers on methods for differentiating their genuine products from counterfeits and imitations when inspecting suspicious shipments at ports of entry into the country.

On September 1, 2020, Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the consolidation of the annual registration statement (Form 56-1) and annual report (Form 56-2) into the new “Form 56-1 One Report” with the objective of reducing listed companies’ filing and reporting burden. The consolidated form will supersede the previous two forms starting January 1, 2022, beginning with listed companies whose fiscal year ends on December 31, 2021.

After the COVID-19 outbreak, a number of business operators were forced to react to the situation by reducing the number of workers or staff they employed. For the labour courts and labour officers, one important point related to such reductions is whether employers have paid the correct amount of severance, remuneration in lieu of advance notice, and overtime payments to their employees.

The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in widespread economic turmoil, with quarantines, business closures, and precipitous declines in consumer and business spending causing momentous shifts in previously sound business models. This has already resulted in various business emergencies, from layoffs and broken supply chains to outright insolvency. This challenging environment seems to signal a bleak outlook for the foreseeable future, but distressed businesses—and their creditors—can take some comfort in knowing that bankruptcy laws around the world are designed for just such circumstances.

Recent amendments to Thailand’s Civil Procedure Code (CPC) will allow parties to submit a matter for court-supervised mediation prior to the actual filing of the case. Encouraging mediation prior to filing a complaint is intended to save time and resources that would otherwise be expended on a trial.These changes are contained in the Act Amending the Civil Procedure Code (No. 32) B.E. 2563 (2020), which was published in the Government Gazette on September 8, 2020, and will apply to all disputes from November 7, 2020, onward. 

In response to the recent uptick in cases of COVID-19 found in Myanmar, and concern about the disease’s spread, all branches of Myanmar’s Office of Registration and Deeds (ORD) have temporarily ceased accepting declarations.