Stamp may be not compulsory for businesses any longer

The taskforce on supervising the implementation of the 2005 Enterprise Law has proposed to amend the article No 36 of the enterprise law, and if the proposal is approved, businesses will not have to have stamps any more.

According to Lawyer Cao Ba Khoat, a member of the taskforce on supervising the implementation of the Enterprise Law, Vietnam has been attaching much importance to enterprises’ stamps in business transactions. It is because people think that stamps are granted by competent agencies, which show the legitimacy and power.

This explains why, in many documents, the signatures of the heads of businesses are copied signatures, but they still be considered legal if there are red stamps on them.

Meanwhile, according to Khoat, stamp should simply be seen as a business identification sign, while it is not the legal symbol of enterprises, because it is easy to counterfeit stamps. Meanwhile, signatures or fingerprints are obviously could be used as better certification.

Sharing the same view, Phi Dang Minh from the Vietnam Banking Association, who is former Deputy Director of the Foreign Currency Management Department of the State Bank of Vietnam, related that he once got troubles with the stamps when he was on his post at the central bank.

The police once showed Minh the legal documents with his signatures and red stamps, which said that Minh used the national foreign currency reserves to guarantee the borrowing of an enterprise

Minh said that the document was “very dangerous” and that he will never sign such a document. However, the surprise was that the document seemed to be lawful with signature and stamp.

“Stamps can be easily counterfeited which may cause immeasurable consequences,” Minh said.

Dinh Dung Sy, Deputy Head of the Legal Department under the Government Office, also said that he witnessed a lot of cases, where the disputes were raised just because of the stamps

According to Sy, business directors believe that they have the right to keep stamps, because they are the legal representatives of enterprises. However, the viewpoint actually comes contrary to the regulations on stamp use and management, which says that the work can be undertaken by normal office clerks.

“Since many directors hold enterprises’ stamps, they would “vanish into the air” with the stamps, when they have disagreement with enterprises,” Si said.

He has asked the taskforce on the enterprise law implementation to make research on if Vietnam should keep requiring stamps for documents. A lot of questions have been raised: what are the differences between stamp and signature? Why only signature is required in the world, but both signature and stamp are required in Vietnam?

Unfeasible thing?

Both businessmen and lawyers agree that stamps bring troubles to enterprises and management bodies, but they remain disagreed about whether to remove stamps right now.

According to Lawyer, Truong Thanh Duc from Maritime Bank, said that the headquarter of the bank alone has released 10,000 documents. And it would be a big problem if the documents only have signatures and no stamp, because it would be very difficult to point out whom and which divisions release the documents.

Nguyen Ngoc Tuan, Chair of the Vietnam Price Appraisal Association, former Deputy Minister of Finance, also said that though the proposal should be applauded, the idea would only become true in some more years.