Conflict of interest A “Conflict of Interest” is defined as a real or seeming incompatibility between one’s private interests and one’s public or fiduciary duties (Black’s Law Dictionary – Ninth Edition). There is no statutory definition of conflict of interest under the laws of Vietnam. Actions constituting conflicts of interest are only indirectly regulated in the form of certain prohibited activities in various legal documents such as the Law on Cadres and Civil Servants 1 or the Law on Anti-corruption 2 which governs the activities of cadres and civil servants in the Governmental system. There are also provisions in the Law on Enterprises 3 governing the activities of people holding management positions in enterprises. However, in Vietnam an employee could potentially be sanctioned under the Civil Code, the Labor Code, or even criminalized under the Penal Code for the following conflicts of interest: An employee who establishes a competing business that provides the same goods or services as those of the employee’s company in the common market; The use of the proprietary information of the company, or that obtained during employment in the company, to benefit the employee’s business or the business of his/her relatives or friends; Providing goods or services to the company’s providers or clients through the business of the employee or his/her relatives or friends; Taking advantage of the employee’s position or power in the company to do business with a third party and which is not in the company’s interests; Utilization by the employee of his/her position and power in the company to allocate key employment positions, such as managers/executives, accountants, cashiers, or storekeepers, to his relatives, friends, or others for the...