Event Report

The Legal 500 and Frasers Law Company GC Corporate Governance & Compliance Forum: Vietnam 2024 invited a select group of 70 legal and business professionals to Frasers’ head office in Deutsche House in Ho Chi Minh City to learn from a hand-picked group of distinguished speakers on a range of subjects related to corporate governance.

The genesis of this event goes back quite a few months. We wanted to put together an event for in-house lawyers and business leaders in Vietnam focused on a key theme and then use that framework to examine different topics. After mulling over a few ideas, our in-house legal research team settled on Corporate Governance; a broad topic with mass appeal which also provides a handy structure to look at common themes (ESG, AI and so forth) the business community faces, with more of an emphasis on negotiations at the upper echelons of companies. Perfect for an event which will cater both to corporate counsel and businesspeople.

To pull this off, we were aware that we needed to partner with a really significant law firm who have experts in a range of practice areas and really know Vietnam back to front.  We were absolutely delighted to be able to partner with Frasers for this even, especially as they celebrate their 30th birthday.

First of all, the experts tackled the ESG space, with a panel discussion moderated by partner Gwendoline Brooker of Frasers who leveraged her vast experience in handling the panelists: Hanh Nguyen, director of project development at REE Energy; Thao Huynh, associate director, legal & compliance at CBRE; and Cat Tuong Nguyen, ESG & investor relations manager at Dynam Capital.

A huge amount of ground was covered in the next panel discussion, Corporate Governance: Directors’ Liabilities & Shareholder Rights in the age of AI and increasing data governance demands. Mark Fraser himself moderated this discussion and posed incisive questions to the fie who joined him on stage: Dzung Nguyen Kim, director, legal & government affairs for British University Vietnam; Hong Le, legal director at GSK Pharma Vietnam; Ho Vinh Long, general counsel of HSBC Vietnam; Linh Huynh, senior legal counsel, Onshore APAC at Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy LLC; and Trần Chí Sơn, board director (Lao-Jagro, Vietsugar, Ladofoods); corporate secretary/corporate governance officer/senior finance manager, former Internal Control Director of Vinamilk.

Finally, attendees enjoyed a probing panel discussion on M&A in the Vietnam context, overseen by partner Ho Thuy Ngoc Tram. An extremely diverse range of perspectives joined her on stage, with Brook Taylor, chief executive officer – Asset Management for VinaCapital, joining from the business community and Motohiko Sano (general manager, legal department of Sojitz Vietnam) and Vu Thuy Diem (head of legal, Shire Oak Capital) feeding in from their perspective as in-house lawyers.

In the conversations which followed in the networking break, attendees commented on the high quality of the discussions during the Forum and that regular events of this kind, aimed at in-house counsel, would really help them to prepare for challenges ahead. We look forward to bringing more such events to Vietnam in 2025.

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