Law on Commercial Arbitration 2010 of Vietnam: An arbitration agreement must be made in writing

According to Article 16 of the Law on Commercial Arbitration 2010 of Vietnam, an arbitration agreement must be in writing. The following forms of agreement may also be regarded as written form:

- Agreement made through communication between the parties by telegram, fax, telex, email or other forms provided for by law;

- Agreement made through exchange of written information between the parties;

- Agreement recorded in writing by a lawyer, notary public or competent institution at the request of the parties:

- In their transactions, the parties make reference to a document such as a contract, document, company charter or other similar documents which contains an arbitration agreement;

- Agreement made through exchange of petitions and self-defense statements which reflect the existence of an agreement proposed by a party and not denied by the other party.

Arbitration agreements in the above-mentioned cases are prescribed as follows:

Firstly, in case multiple arbitration agreements are reached on the same dispute, the latest lawful agreement shall apply.

Secondly, if the contents of an arbitration agreement are not clear or could be understood in more than one way, regulations of the Civil Code of Vietnam shall apply.

Thirdly, when there is a handover of rights and obligations under a transaction or contract which contains a lawful arbitration agreement, such agreement is still applicable to the transferee and the transferor, unless otherwise agreed by the parties concerned.

Fourthly, multiple legal relationships to resolve the same case shall be combined in one of the cases below:

- The parties agree to combine multiple legal relationships to resolve the same case;

- The arbitration rules allow for a combination of multiple legal relationships to resolve the same case.

This is the content specified in Article 7 of the Resolution No. 01/2014/NQ-HĐTP.

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