Vietnam: Administrative penalties for violations against regulations on food safety

For each administrative violation of food safety, violating individuals and organizations must be subject to the main sanction of a fine. In addition:

Additional penalties are as follows:

- Suspension of the certificate of food safety for 01 – 06 months, or the certificate of registered product declaration for 01 – 24 months;

- Suspension of the operation for 01 – 12 months as regulated in Clause 2 Article 25 of the Law on penalties for administrative violations;

- Confiscation of the exhibits and instrumentalities for committing food safety violations.

And remedial measures are as follows:

- Enforced re-export of foods, food additives, food processing aids, food containers and primary packages of foods;

- Enforced destruction of foods, food additives, food processing aids, food containers, primary packages of foods, materials, substances, chemicals, antibiotics, veterinary medicines, pesticides; unsuitable documents and publications about food safety; exhibits of violations; disqualified shipments of aquatic products;

- Enforced correction of information that is untrue or causes misunderstanding;

- Enforced recall of foods, food additives, food processing aids, food containers and primary packages of disqualified foods; released documents and publications;

- Enforced repurposing or recycling of foods, food additives, food processing aids, food containers and primary packages of disqualified foods;

- Enforced recall of the self-declaration form;

- Enforced removal or deletion of unsuitable advertisement contents;

- Enforced payment of costs of handling of food poisoning cases, examination and treatment for persons poisoned by foods;

- Enforced suspension of operation of vehicles used to transport foods;

- Enforced cancellation of testing results or notices of satisfactory inspection results of imported foods;

- Enforced payment of an amount equal to the value of the exhibits of violation which have been destroyed.

Decree No. 115/2018/NĐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government takes effect from October 20, 2018.

- Thanh Lam -

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