1. Overview of Asset Freezing in the Vietnamese Legal System

1.1. Legal Nature of the Asset Freezing Measure

In the operation of a market economy, commercial and civil transactions always carry the potential risk of disputes arising from breach of contract, delayed payment, or intentional evasion of property obligations by partners. Faced with these risks, rights holders always need to seek strong and timely legal methods to protect their legitimate interests. The asset freezing measure established in the Vietnamese legal system is one of the key tools to meet that need.

The legal nature of the asset freezing measure is a decision bearing state power, issued by a judicial body or a judgment enforcement agency, with the aim of temporarily restricting or depriving the owner’s right of disposition over one or several specific assets. The ultimate goal of this restriction is to maintain the status quo of the assets, completely preventing acts of transferring, dispersing, concealing, or destroying assets by the obligor. Through this intervention, financial resources and physical assets are preserved intact, ensuring that the case resolution process takes place objectively and guaranteeing the feasibility of actual enforcement after the judgment or decision of the judicial body takes legal effect.

From an in-depth professional perspective, an asset freezing decision does not alter or terminate the core ownership rights of the involved party over the asset but merely creates a temporary suspension of the right to dispose of the asset. This intermediary intervention reflects the principle of ensuring a balance of interests in judicial activities. The legal system, on one hand, protects the right to claim debt and the legitimate interests of the plaintiff; on the other hand, it must still ensure not to permanently deprive the defendant’s ownership rights when the competent authority has not yet issued a final legally effective ruling.

1.2. Provisional Emergency Measures in Civil Procedure

The concept of asset freezing is not generally defined in the system of normative legal documents but is categorized into specialized terms corresponding to each procedural stage and the nature of the case. In the stage of resolving civil and commercial disputes at the Court or Commercial Arbitration, the official term used is provisional emergency measures.

The 2015 Civil Procedure Code details the forms of this measure. Specifically, the judicial body has the right to apply the measure of freezing accounts at banks, other credit institutions, and the state treasury according to Article 124, the measure of freezing assets at a place of deposit according to Article 125, and the measure of freezing assets of the obligor according to Article 126. This is the group of measures most prioritized by enterprises when initiating litigation to immediately establish a barrier preventing the movement of assets by the defaulting partner.

1.3. Asset Freezing in Civil Judgment Enforcement

In the stage of civil judgment enforcement, when a legally effective judgment or decision exists, the specialized term applied is the measure to secure judgment enforcement. As of May 2026, all judgment enforcement operations and security measures must still comply with the 2008 Law on Civil Judgment Enforcement (amended and supplemented in 2014 and 2022). Accordingly, Enforcers have the right to issue decisions to freeze accounts, temporarily seize assets and documents to prevent dispersal acts before proceeding with distraint and subsequent asset processing steps. Enterprises can also request Bailiffs working at Bailiff Offices to carry out operations to verify judgment enforcement conditions and organize judgment enforcement upon request.

Starting from July 1, 2026, the 2025 Law on Civil Judgment Enforcement No. 106/2025/QH15 will officially take effect. This law continues to strongly consolidate the authority to freeze assets, expands the socialization mechanism, and officially changes the title of Bailiff to Execution Officer and Bailiff Office to Civil Judgment Enforcement Office. Synchronized with the above law, the Government’s Decree No. 152/2026/ND-CP will also take effect from July 2026, creating a legal corridor for carrying out judgment enforcement procedures in the digital environment, including sending, receiving documents, and serving freezing decisions via the national electronic identity application.

1.4. Account Freezing for Commercial Legal Entities in Criminal Procedure

Besides the civil and commercial fields, the account freezing measure also plays an extremely important role in criminal procedure, especially for crimes involving commercial legal entities. Article 438 of the 2015 Criminal Procedure Code stipulates that the account freezing measure is applied to legal entities prosecuted, investigated, charged, or tried for crimes for which the Penal Code prescribes a fine or to secure damage compensation.

A special feature of this regulation is that the procedural agency has the right to apply freezing to the accounts of other individuals and organizations if there are grounds to determine that the balance in such accounts is directly related to the criminal acts of the commercial legal entity. This measure bears strict state coercive nature, completely independent of the victim’s request, and establishes absolute priority for the state’s interest in recovering assets derived from crimes.

2. Legal Conditions for Competent Authorities to Accept Asset Freezing Requests

2.1. Existence of a Lawful Claim or Dispute with Basis

An asset freezing request is a very serious property right restriction measure that directly impacts the involved party’s business operations and liquidity. Therefore, the People’s Court will only consider applying this measure when the requester proves the existence of a lawful dispute relationship. This existence cannot be based on mere statements but must be demonstrated through initial documents and evidence with high legal reliability.

Common types of disputes that give rise to freezing requests include disputes over goods sale contracts, service supply contracts, disputes arising from property loans, disputes related to intellectual property rights, or internal corporate disputes regarding the division of benefits and the transfer of capital contributions and shares. The requester must prove their valid legal status in that dispute relationship, meaning proving themselves as the person whose property rights or direct interests are being seriously infringed upon by the opposing party.

Regarding the timing of exercising rights, civil procedure law allows involved parties to file a request for the Court to apply provisional emergency measures throughout the process the Court is accepting and resolving the case. Concurrently, in extremely urgent situations, involved parties have the right to file this request prior to or simultaneously with the time of filing the lawsuit. The prerequisite is that the attached lawsuit dossier must fully meet the standards of form and content in accordance with civil procedure law.

2.2. Risk of Asset Dispersion or Irreparable Damage

The condition regarding the risk of asset dispersion is evaluated as the most decisive factor in whether the Court approves the freezing request or not. The application of provisional emergency measures is only considered justified when a delay in issuing a preventive decision will lead to serious consequences, making the subsequent judgment unenforceable in reality because the judgment debtor has dispersed all assets.

According to the guidance in Resolution No. 02/2020/NQ-HDTP issued by the Justices Council of the Supreme People’s Court, the requester must provide documents and evidence proving that the obligor is carrying out or has a clear intention of carrying out acts to disperse or destroy assets. The dispersion risk cannot solely be subjective assumptions or unfounded deductions of the plaintiff but must be materialized through objective factual events.

The practical manifestations constituting the risk of asset dispersion are highly diverse in commercial activities. These manifestations may include the opposing party publicly or secretly offering real estate for sale on trading platforms, signing deposit contracts for the transfer of land use rights, or carrying out procedures to transfer the ownership of vehicles. In the banking and financial sector, dispersion acts can be identified through the opposing party continuously withdrawing large cash amounts abnormally from the enterprise’s payment accounts, or continuously executing money transfer orders to the accounts of relatives or legal entities controlled by them for the purpose of hiding assets. Collecting sufficient evidence to prove these acts requires enterprises to have sharp commercial information verification skills and in-depth consultation from legal experts.

2.3. Specificity and Identifying Information of the Assets Requested for Freezing

A common mistake leading to the rejection of an asset freezing request dossier is that enterprises make an overly broad request completely lacking specific identification, typically requesting the Court to issue a decision to freeze all assets of the defendant. Such a generalized request will certainly be rejected by the Court for violating the principle of object specification and exceeding the scope necessary to protect legitimate interests.

Specification requires the petitioner to provide detailed and accurate information to the extent that the judgment enforcement agency or commercial bank can immediately locate and apply technical measures to lock that asset. For requests to freeze bank accounts, the mandatory information includes the bank’s name, the branch managing the account, the specific account number, and the identifying personal information of the account holder. For real estate freezing requests, the requester must provide exactly the land plot number, map sheet number, address of the asset, and detailed information recorded on the Certificate of land use rights or house ownership. The more detailed the dossier preparation, the higher the likelihood of the Judge approving the application of provisional emergency measures.

2.4. Principle of Proportionality regarding the Value of Frozen Assets

Besides the asset identification factor, the proportionality principle regarding asset value is a very strict statutory limit aimed at protecting the rights of the person subject to the freezing measure. Clause 4, Article 133 of the 2015 Civil Procedure Code and Clause 2, Article 12 of Resolution No. 02/2020/NQ-HDTP stipulate that the Court is only allowed to freeze accounts and assets with a value equal to or lower than the property obligation that the person subject to the provisional emergency measure is obliged to perform towards the plaintiff. The person requesting the provisional emergency measure is obliged to prove the value of the frozen account or asset and must be responsible for the truthfulness and accuracy of the documents relating to the valuation of that asset.

This regulation poses a massive challenge in the practical resolution of cases, especially when the object of the freezing request is indivisible assets, such as land use rights, housing, or cars, while the actual debt amount is much lower than the value of that asset block. When facing this situation, the Trial Panel or the Judge will have to consider extremely carefully. For bank accounts, this regulation is easily enforced because the competent authority only needs to issue a decision to freeze an amount corresponding to the property obligation level. For real estate that cannot be divided into smaller parts, the Court often requires the involved party to change the measure to prohibiting the transfer of property rights instead of applying the measure to freeze the entire asset block to strictly comply with the guidance of the Justices Council of the Supreme People’s Court.

3. Classification of Asset Groups Subject to Freezing

3.1. Payment Accounts and Deposits at Credit Institutions

Payment accounts of individuals and legal entities opened at commercial banks and foreign bank branches operating in Vietnam are always the top priority targets when enterprises request the application of freezing measures. The absolute advantage of this measure lies in the extremely high liquidity of cash, while the technical process to execute the freezing via the bank’s software system happens very quickly, efficiently, and is less hindered by physical impact factors as with real estate or tangible goods.

As of 2026, the highest legal basis governing banking service provision activities is the 2024 Law on Credit Institutions bearing the number 32/2024/QH15. This law clearly defines the responsibilities of commercial banks in ensuring information system security, protecting customer data confidentiality, and strictly complying with the decisions of competent state agencies.

Synchronized with the above law, Article 11 of the Government’s Decree No. 52/2024/ND-CP has detailed four cases where a customer’s payment account is frozen for a part or the entire balance. These cases include when there is a prior agreement between the payment account holder and the payment service provider, when there is a decision or written request from a competent authority according to legal regulations, when the payment service provider discovers a confusion or error during the process of crediting the account, and when there is a valid freezing request from one of the joint payment account holders. For enterprises conducting the litigation process to recover debts, the regulation regarding “having a decision or written request from a competent authority” is the core legal foundation to request the Court or judgment enforcement agency to issue an order compelling the bank to freeze the defaulting partner’s account.

3.2. Real Estate and Land Use Rights

Real estate, including housing, construction works attached to land, and land use rights, is the asset block carrying the greatest economic value for most enterprises and individuals. Although the term freezing is often associated by professionals with bank accounts, in practical legal language, carrying out procedures to block real estate transfer transactions is also understood as a form of asset freezing. In the civil procedure system, the corresponding measure usually applied by the Court is prohibiting the transfer of property rights regarding the disputed asset or distraining the asset.

The freezing process for real estate requires highly synchronized inter-agency coordination. As soon as the People’s Court issues a decision, this document must be immediately served to the Land Registration Office and notified to notary practice organizations in the area to put all identifying information of that real estate into the transaction blocking warning database system. The most complex point of freezing real estate lies in the fact that the competent authority must clearly determine the current legal status of the asset, specifically whether the asset is currently lawfully mortgaged at a commercial bank to secure a loan or not, or whether that asset is under the joint ownership of a husband and wife, or joint ownership of household members. These factors will determine the legality and the scope of effectiveness of the real estate freezing decision.

3.3. Movable Assets Requiring Ownership Registration

This asset group includes road motorized vehicles such as cars, motorcycles, or larger-scale vehicles like inland waterway transport vessels and aircraft in the aviation sector. The outstanding characteristic of this asset group is the ability to easily move across geographical boundaries and be consumed very quickly on the secondary market. Therefore, the risk of asset dispersion for these movable assets is highly present and frequently occurs in reality.

To effectively freeze movable assets requiring ownership registration, the decision of the Court or the judgment enforcement agency needs to be urgently served to the Traffic Police Department, Vietnam Register, Vietnam Maritime Administration, or Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam, depending on the vehicle type. The appearance of the freezing decision on the data systems of these agencies will completely paralyze the ability to carry out procedures for transferring names and ownership, reissuing registration certificates due to fake loss reports, or periodic technical inspection for the obligor’s vehicle, thereby keeping the asset’s status quo waiting for resolution.

3.4. Capital Contributions and Shares in Enterprises

Along with the development of the financial market and corporate law, shares in joint-stock companies and capital contributions in limited liability companies have become a type of asset carrying tremendous value. The request to freeze shares often arises from legal battles to seize internal corporate control, disputes arising from mergers and acquisitions contracts, or for the purpose of coercive judgment enforcement against individual shareholders.

The measure of freezing shares is implemented through the Court or judgment enforcement agency serving the freezing decision document directly to the legal representative of the share-issuing company, the Business Registration Office under the Department of Planning and Investment, and the Vietnam Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation in case the assets are shares of public companies listed on the stock exchange. From the moment of receiving the decision, the enterprise and state management agencies will refuse to receive and process any dossiers notifying changes in shareholder or contributing member information directly related to the frozen shares. Under the perspective of substantive law, any transfer, pledge, or mortgage transaction regarding the capital contribution or shares during the time they are frozen by the competent authority violates the legal prohibition and is naturally declared invalid. This mechanism completely neutralizes the obligor’s intention to disperse assets through fake capital transfer contracts or capital contribution donation contracts.

3.5. Assets and Goods Stored at a Third Party

In the modern commercial supply chain management environment, goods are frequently consigned and preserved at independent warehouse systems, commercial seaports, or professional logistics service providers. To regulate this situation, Article 125 of the 2015 Civil Procedure Code specifically provides for the application of provisional emergency measures to assets at a place of deposit.

Applying this measure implies compelling the third legal entity currently managing the goods in reality to immediately suspend warehousing, delivery, or transferring goods ownership documents according to the owner’s order. For this request to be feasible in execution, the party requesting the freezing has the obligation to provide the Court with complete information about the warehousing contract, sea or air bill of lading code, detailed goods packaging specifications, and the exact location where the goods are being preserved and stored.

4. Jurisdiction to Issue Asset Freezing Decisions

4.1. Legal Jurisdiction of People’s Courts at All Levels

In the entire procedural system resolving civil, labor, and commercial disputes, the People’s Court is the adjudicatory body playing a central role in considering and deciding to apply provisional emergency measures to freeze assets. This enormous authority is directly granted by law to the Judge assigned to accept and resolve the case.

Throughout the process from accepting the lawsuit petition to the trial preparation stage, the Judge has the independent right to issue decisions to apply, change, or cancel the freezing of accounts and assets based on the analysis and evaluation of documents and evidence submitted by the involved parties. If the case has entered the public trial stage at the courtroom, the jurisdiction to decide on applying provisional emergency measures will be transferred from the individual Judge to the collective Trial Panel. All decisions in this stage will be discussed and voted on by the members of the Trial Panel in the deliberation room before being publicly announced in the courtroom.

4.2. Jurisdiction of Commercial Arbitration Councils

Unlike the traditional legal mindset that only state power bodies like Courts have the jurisdiction to order asset freezing, the 2010 Law on Commercial Arbitration created a progressive mechanism by granting the authority to apply provisional emergency measures to Arbitration Councils. When a valid arbitration agreement exists between the disputing parties, one party has the absolute right to send a request for the Arbitration Council to issue an asset freezing decision to protect crucial evidence or preserve the asset block under dispute.

Despite having the jurisdiction to issue decisions, the Arbitration Council’s power still has certain limits because it is fundamentally a non-governmental dispute resolution body. The Arbitration Council does not possess a state coercive apparatus to force subjects to comply. In case the requested party intentionally ignores and does not comply with the Arbitration Council’s freezing decision, the requesting party is entitled to submit a request proposing the competent civil judgment enforcement agency to apply state coercive measures to support the execution of that decision. Additionally, the law also establishes a principle to avoid jurisdictional overlapping: the involved party has the right to choose to file a request for provisional emergency measures at the People’s Court or the Arbitration Council, but absolutely must not file at both functional bodies simultaneously.

4.3. Specialized Jurisdiction of Civil Judgment Enforcement Agencies

The civil judgment enforcement stage is the time when state coercive power is used to turn verdicts and judgments on paper into actual property benefits for the judgment creditor. According to the provisions of the 2008 Law on Civil Judgment Enforcement (amended and supplemented in 2014 and 2022) applicable as of May 2026, the Civil Judgment Enforcement Agency, through the judicial title of Enforcer, has the jurisdiction to proactively, or based on the involved party’s written request, apply immediate measures to secure judgment enforcement, centering on freezing bank accounts and temporarily seizing valuable assets. The process of serving the freezing decision currently is still mainly carried out through traditional methods via Enforcers or Bailiffs.

Starting from July 1, 2026, the Vietnamese judgment enforcement judiciary will officially operate according to the new regulatory system of the 2025 Law on Civil Judgment Enforcement and Decree No. 152/2026/ND-CP. Civil judgment enforcement procedures will be strongly pushed to be implemented on the digital environment, including electronic dossier management, document serving, and asset freezing notification via the national electronic identity application instead of just sending traditional paper documents. This change marks a tremendous leap in shortening the time to organize judgment enforcement, enhancing transparency, and supporting Execution Officers (the new title for Bailiffs) working at Civil Judgment Enforcement Offices to operate more flexibly and proactively in issuing and executing asset freezing decisions.

4.4. Jurisdiction of Criminal Procedural Agencies

Although the main subject of this article focuses on civil and commercial relations, enterprises also need to equip themselves with knowledge about the risk of accounts and assets being frozen by criminal procedural agencies, including the Police Investigation Agency, the People’s Procuracy, and the People’s Court. When a commercial legal entity is prosecuted by a state agency for crimes related to economic fraud, large-scale tax evasion, smuggling, or transnational money laundering, the Head of the Investigation Agency has full authority to issue an order to freeze that legal entity’s payment accounts based on Article 438 of the 2015 Criminal Procedure Code. This criminal-natured intervention has the highest legal power, capable of invalidating and suspending all ongoing civil transactions to serve the investigation and ensure asset recovery for the state.

5. Structure of an Asset Freezing Request Dossier for Enterprises

For an asset freezing request to be quickly received and approved by the People’s Court or the competent state agency, the enterprise must build a structured dossier, tight in terms of evidence, and demonstrating logical legal thinking. A standard dossier recommended by professional lawyers includes the following basic document groups:

5.1. Application for the Application of Provisional Emergency Measures

The application is the central legal document, expressing the entire will, desire, and legal arguments of the requester. The content of the application must strictly meet the regulations on standard forms and templates issued by the Justices Council of the Supreme People’s Court.

In the application, the enterprise representative must clearly present the personal information, enterprise code, head office address, and procedural participation status of the involved parties. The most important element is to accurately determine the provisional emergency measure proposed for the Court to apply, correctly cite the clauses of the 2015 Civil Procedure Code, and describe in detail the identifying characteristics of the asset block needing freezing. The presentation of the reasons for the request must be written coherently, clearly explaining the causes leading to the dispersion risk, and emphasizing the serious damage consequences if the Court delays issuing the decision. Finally, the scope and total value of the assets proposed for freezing must be calculated reasonably, sticking closely to the value of the compensation claim or the obligation to pay principal debt, late payment interest, and contract violation fines.

5.2. Documents and Evidence Proving a Lawful Dispute

According to the general principles of procedural law, the Court cannot order the freezing of a subject’s assets if the plaintiff is incapable of providing foundational documents proving that the subject has a property obligation toward the plaintiff. This group of evidence includes the entire dossier forming the civil or commercial transaction between the two parties, specifically such as original economic contracts, contract amendment appendices, goods delivery and receipt minutes, construction project acceptance minutes, and validly issued value-added tax invoices.

Particularly, documents containing content showing the acknowledgment of obligation from the defaulting partner, such as debt repayment commitment papers, periodic debt reconciliation minutes signed by the legal representative and stamped with the enterprise’s seal, or email exchanges confirming the outstanding debt balance are evidence with absolute probative value, helping the Judge quickly consolidate inner belief about the legitimacy of the freezing request.

5.3. Documents and Evidence Proving the Risk of Asset Dispersion

Collecting evidence to prove asset dispersion acts is often evaluated as the most complex stage but is vital to the success or failure of the freezing application procedure. Enterprises need to proactively collect and provide the Court with printed screenshots of messages via electronic communication apps, transaction emails, or direct working minutes showing a non-voluntary attitude to execute obligations, refusal to cooperate, or even threats to transfer the opposing party’s assets to evade payment responsibilities.

Additionally, information collected from the opposing party posting real estate for sale on online trading platforms, asset disposition authorization contracts to third parties, or bank account statements showing cash flows being abruptly withdrawn from the enterprise’s account in unusually large volumes are also extremely important material bases to convince the procedural agency of the necessity and urgency to issue a freezing order.

5.4. Documents and Evidence Identifying and Valuing the Assets

To ensure the Court has sufficient information to issue a preventive decision strictly according to the principle of object specification, the dossier must attach full detailed identifying documents of the asset. For requests to freeze land use rights and assets attached to land, the enterprise must strive to provide cadastral information extracts and copies of the Certificate of land use rights collected from the Land Registration Office or other lawful public information sources.

For requests to freeze payment accounts at credit institutions, providing previous money transfer notices between the two enterprises, photos of the account opening service provision contract, or exchange dispatches accurately recording the opposing party’s account number information is a mandatory requirement so that the Court’s decision can be executed by the bank immediately.

6. Procedural Process for Requesting and Executing Asset Freezing Decisions

6.1. Situation Assessment and Dossier Preparation Phase

Before officially filing the application for the freezing measure, the enterprise along with the legal expert team must conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the litigation strategy. The decision on choosing which asset to freeze requires acumen in legal analysis. Enterprises should prioritize targeting assets with high liquidity, which are easily frozen procedurally, and have few entanglements with other priority security transactions, typically assets not yet mortgaged to secure loans at credit institutions. Concurrently, the enterprise’s board of directors must direct a thorough check of the proportionality between the value of the target asset expected to be frozen and the total value of the lawsuit claim to avoid violating legal regulations and to minimize the risk of having to compensate for damages later.

6.2. Dossier Submission and Reception Phase at the Competent Authority

After completing the dossier with all types of evidence documents, the request application will be submitted directly or sent via the postal system by the enterprise representative to the People’s Court with jurisdiction to resolve the main case. If the application for provisional emergency measures is submitted simultaneously with the lawsuit petition, the Chief Justice of the People’s Court will be responsible for immediately assigning a Judge to conduct the review and resolution. The assigned Judge has the legal obligation to review the dossier urgently and issue a processing decision within a very short time limit according to the provisions of civil procedure law with the purpose of timely preventing the defendant’s asset dispersion plot.

6.3. Fulfillment of the Financial Security Obligation Phase

This is a phase playing a pivotal role, but it is a step where many enterprises often lack timely preparation of financial resources, leading to letting the best freezing opportunity slip away. When the assigned Judge considers that the asset freezing request submitted by the enterprise has full legal bases, the judicial body will issue a notification document requiring the enterprise to implement security measures by depositing a cash amount or valuable papers into a freezing account designated by the Court at the state treasury or a commercial bank. Only after the enterprise presents documents proving the completion of this escrow transfer obligation will the Judge officially sign and issue the decision to apply the provisional emergency measure according to Clause 1, Article 136 of the 2015 Civil Procedure Code.

6.4. Issuance and Service of the Freezing Decision Phase

A decision to freeze accounts and assets issued by the People’s Court will be effective for execution immediately from the moment it is signed and issued. Procedural law strictly prohibits procedural agencies from delaying but mandates issuing the decision immediately to the requester, and concurrently must serve this decision to the person subject to the measure, the People’s Procuracy at the same level, and especially state management agencies and credit institutions directly responsible for managing data systems related to the frozen assets. From July 2026, this serving mechanism can be executed fully automatically through data interconnection to the electronic identity accounts of the involved parties.

6.5. Inter-agency Coordination Phase to Execute the Decision

A decision issued by the Court will not promote its right-protecting effect if it is not strictly executed in reality. The freezing decision must be sent immediately to the main headquarters or bank branch where the violating subject opened the account, or to the Land Registration Office where the real estate is located.

Based on the legal foundation of the 2024 Law on Credit Institutions and Article 11 of Decree No. 52/2024/ND-CP, upon receiving a lawful decision from a procedural agency, the payment service provider must immediately proceed to freeze a part or the entire balance in the customer’s payment account. This must be thoroughly executed by the bank’s information technology system, ensuring absolutely no money transfer, cash withdrawal, or payment order transactions are executed successfully regarding the frozen amount from the moment of receiving the order.

7. Detailed Regulations on Financial Security Measures (Escrow, Deposit)

7.1. Purpose and Legal Nature of Security Measures

According to Article 136 of the 2015 Civil Procedure Code, the subject filing the request for the Court to apply provisional emergency measures must bear full legal responsibility for the correctness of their request. If the case resolution outcome determines that the asset freezing request was wrong, causing actual damage to the frozen party’s business operations or harming the legitimate interests of a third party, the person who requested the measure has the obligation to compensate for all those damages.

Stemming from the above principle, the core purpose of the regulation compelling the implementation of financial security measures is to prevent enterprises from intentionally abusing the right to request asset freezing as an unfair competition tool to destroy reputation and disrupt the competitor’s transaction system. Simultaneously, this escrow amount will create an available backup financial source to swiftly compensate for the defendant’s losses, protecting the defendant’s rights without requiring them to go through complex and prolonged secondary lawsuit procedures claiming damages and judgment enforcement.

7.2. Forms of Application and Calculation Methods for Security Value

The most common form of security allowed by law to be applied is the requester depositing a cash amount, precious metals, gemstones, or valuable papers into a freezing account at a commercial bank. According to the detailed provisions in Clause 2, Article 136 of the 2015 Civil Procedure Code, this money amount or valuable papers must be deposited into a freezing account at the bank where the Court deciding to apply the measure is headquartered; in case that locality has many banks, the person executing the security measure has the right to choose the most convenient bank.

Regarding the calculation method for the security value, procedural law dictates that the financial security level is normally determined equivalent to twenty percent of the temporarily calculated value of the asset subject to the provisional emergency measure, except when there is clear evidence proving the actual damage or loss that may arise is lower than this twenty percent level. The calculation of this expected damage level completely depends on the judgment and decision of the Judge based on evaluating the complexity of each specific case, the scale of the frozen enterprise, and the nature of the affected asset.

7.3. Legal Consequences of Breaching the Security Obligation

As mentioned throughout the execution procedure analysis, implementing the financial security measure is a prerequisite and a non-negotiable mandatory condition. If the enterprise lacks sufficient financial preparation to deposit the escrow amount as prescribed, or refuses to fulfill this requirement within the time limit stipulated by law, the People’s Court will have sufficient grounds to return the application for provisional emergency measures and refuse to issue the freezing decision. This poses an urgent requirement for Chief Financial Officers and internal legal teams of enterprises to carefully prepare backup working capital sources before deciding to launch large-scale legal campaigns to recover debts.

8. Duration of Application, Grounds, and Procedures for Canceling the Freezing Measure

8.1. Legal Grounds for the Court to Cancel the Freezing Measure

The asset freezing measure is designed for the purpose of temporary prevention, not of a permanent nature, and especially not to deprive the lawful ownership rights of citizens and organizations. According to the detailed provisions in Article 138 of the 2015 Civil Procedure Code, a decision to freeze accounts and assets will be canceled by the competent authority when specific circumstances arise.

The first ground is when the requester realizes the measure is no longer necessary and proactively submits an application requesting the Court to cancel the applied measure. The second ground is when the obligor has made efforts to provide another asset of equivalent value, or a third party steps forward to use their lawful assets to secure the execution of the obligation replacing the currently frozen asset. The third ground arises when the initial foundation forming the basis for applying the freezing measure no longer exists, typically when the civil dispute case has been completely resolved by a legally effective judgment and the process of enforcing rights shifts to the judgment enforcement stage through other specialized coercive mechanisms.

Additionally, according to Article 11 of Decree No. 52/2024/ND-CP, the termination of a payment account freeze at a bank is executed when there is a written agreement between the account holder and the service provider, when there is a freeze termination decision from a competent authority, or when there is a termination request from all joint account holders.

Furthermore, in the civil judgment enforcement stage, the release of frozen accounts or assets will be carried out by the Enforcer or Bailiff (from July 1, 2026, called Execution Officer) when the involved party provides documents and receipts proving full payment of debts according to the ruling, or both involved parties have reached a written agreement unifying the suspension of judgment enforcement.

8.2. Procedures for Requesting the Cancellation of the Asset Freezing Decision

When one of the aforementioned legal grounds arises, the involved party whose interests are affected has the right to send a written request to the People’s Court to issue a decision canceling the provisional emergency measure. After receiving the document, the Judge assigned to resolve the case will be responsible for studying, considering the evidence, and issuing a cancellation decision if they deem the request entirely lawful and well-founded. Once issued, the cancellation decision must be served immediately to credit institutions and asset ownership registration agencies so that these agencies can proceed to remove technical barriers on their systems, fully restoring the right to dispose of the asset to the true owner.

8.3. Rights and Self-Defense Mechanisms of the Party Subject to the Freezing Measure

If an enterprise falls into the position of being the frozen party and perceives that the Judge’s decision lacks objectivity, violates the law, or exceeds the necessary limits to resolve the dispute, the enterprise absolutely has the right to use legal tools to defend itself. The procedural legal system provides a very clear complaint mechanism against these provisional emergency measure application decisions.

Enterprises have the right to compile a dossier sending documents accompanied by detailed counter-argument evidence. The counter-argument content can focus on proving that the currently frozen asset actually belongs to the lawful ownership of a third party, proving the enterprise has an extremely healthy financial situation and absolutely no intention or act of asset dispersion, or proving the total value of the asset ordered frozen by the Court exceeds many times compared to the debt under dispute. The Chief Justice of the People’s Court where the Judge works will be the highest competent person in considering and resolving these complaints within the statutory time limit to ensure judicial fairness and prevent power abuse.

9. Assessing Legal Risks When Abusing Asset Freezing Requests

9.1. Liability to Compensate for Material Damage and Commercial Losses

As analyzed in previous sections, requesting the Court to apply an asset freezing measure carries a tremendously large concomitant legal risk for the petitioner. The most serious risk for the requesting enterprise is having to bear full responsibility for compensating the actual damages arising for the harmed party.

When an order to freeze a company’s bank accounts or freeze goods circulating in warehouses is issued contrary to legal regulations, the enterprise subject to the freezing measure may face massive business damage, severe disruption of the supply chain, inability to pay salaries to employees, delayed payment of mature debts to partners leading to the application of contract violation penalty sanctions, and loss of profitable investment opportunities in the market. All these direct material losses, combined with hard-to-quantify damages regarding brand reputation with customers, will be calculated in detail by legal experts to establish a dossier requesting the person who applied for the freezing order to fully compensate. The security amount previously escrowed by the requesting enterprise will be the first financial source extracted by the Court’s decision to fulfill this loss compensation obligation.

9.2. Adverse Legal Consequences in the Resolution of the Main Case

Abusing procedural mechanisms to make unfounded asset freezing requests based on flimsy evidence documents and impure competitive motives will cause the requesting enterprise to be evaluated by the Court as having acts of abusing citizens’ rights with the aim of causing difficulties and hindering the opposing party’s lawful operations. The skeptical evaluation attitude from the Judge accepting the case may lead to the consequence that the adjudicatory body will consider all evidence and legal arguments of the enterprise more strictly and less favorably in subsequent trial sessions.

Moreover, if the asset freezing request decision is rejected by the Court, the opposing enterprise will immediately capitalize on this legal failure to consolidate its advantage during negotiations, refuse compromises, or even prepare a counter-lawsuit dossier to demand compensation for damages due to affected honor and reputation.

9.3. Risk Management Principles for the Board of Directors

To maximize the protective power of the asset freezing measure without getting entangled in complex legal consequences, chief executive officers and internal legal department members of the enterprise must adhere to a core risk management principle. This principle requires enterprise representatives to only decide to file a request for the Court to order a freeze if and only if the enterprise has enough data to explain transparently, possesses a solid document system proving three basic elements comprising: the existence of a lawful civil or commercial dispute obligation quantifiable in money, a specific target asset identified and valued not exceeding the obligation, along with material evidence showing the risk of asset dispersion is actually taking place in reality.

10. In-depth Answers to Common Legal Issues for Enterprises

10.1. Legal Difference Between Freezing and Distraining Assets

Although often used interchangeably or substituted for each other in everyday commercial language, freezing and distraining assets are two coercive measures with entirely different legal natures, procedural sequences, and resolution purposes.

An asset freezing decision mainly carries a temporary preventive nature in the early stage of the case, creating a technical and legal barrier to lock transactions transferring ownership rights or use rights, with the sole purpose of maintaining the existing status quo of the asset. Conversely, the asset distraint measure is usually a direct coercive action, associated with the process of functional agencies specifically determining boundaries, detailing characteristics, and taking direct control of the asset to prepare for the transition to an independent asset valuation process and bringing the asset to public auction to collect money to secure judgment enforcement. During the litigation stage resolving civil cases, the provisional emergency measure of distraint is only applied by the Trial Panel to the very asset directly under dispute in the case, whereas the freezing measure can be broadly applied to other assets of the obligor to secure general payment capacity.

10.2. Possibility of Applying Freezing Measures to Assets under a Third Party’s Name

Based on the fundamental general principles of civil law, each individual or organization is an independent legal entity and is only responsible for paying financial obligations using exactly the assets under their own lawful ownership. For that reason, a plaintiff requesting the Court agency to freeze an asset block lawfully registered under the name of the defendant’s family members, friends, or an entirely different legal entity is an extremely difficult request and in most cases will be rejected by the Court.

However, the law still provides exceptional mechanisms. If the petitioning enterprise can build a sophisticated evidence collection strategy, convincing the Court that the asset transfer transaction from the defendant to the third party is actually just a sham transaction to cover up dispersion acts, or that asset was purchased and formed from funds illegally appropriated by the defendant from the plaintiff, then the Court still has sufficient jurisdictional grounds to consider applying the asset freezing decision to maintain the status quo, waiting for the outcome of a ruling declaring the civil transaction invalid. This belongs to the group of extremely complex dispute cases, requiring the intervention and participation of professional law practice organizations and seasoned litigation lawyers.

10.3. Solutions When Lacking Identifying Information of the Partner’s Bank Account

In the context of practical commercial dispute resolution, an enterprise failing to collect or lacking accurate identifying information such as the partner’s current bank account number will create a tremendously large obstacle to issuing a freezing decision. According to general procedural principles, the People’s Court and credit institutions have no legal responsibility to conduct investigations or search for bank accounts on behalf of the lawsuit requester.

However, to partially overcome the difficulties of this information shortage situation, the requesting enterprise can rely on auxiliary identifying information with high certainty to submit the application. Specifically, the dossier needs to provide the exact full name of the account holder, enterprise code, or state-issued tax code, tightly combined with the trade name of the credit institution and branch information where the partner has a history of frequently issuing payment orders, issuing letters of credit, or contract guarantee letters in previous transactions. The success rate of this indirect information provision solution depends directly on the capacity to work, explain to procedural agencies, and the goodwill to coordinate data processing of the relevant banking system.

10.4. Mechanism for Executing Asset Freezing Procedures Outside the Administrative Territory

The legal system of procedure and judgment enforcement of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam allows close linkage and synchronized power execution across the entire national territory. Aligned with the current two-tier court and administrative agency organizational model, when a Regional People’s Court or a Provincial People’s Court with jurisdiction to resolve the case issues an asset freezing decision, this judicial decision has mandatory execution value regarding all assets of the defendant regardless of which province or locality across the country that asset is located in.

To ensure this process goes smoothly, the requester only needs to provide full specific information about the geographical coordinates of the real estate, or the detailed warehouse location storing goods in another locality. Based on that information, the Court agency issuing the decision will proceed to serve directly or carry out judicial entrustment procedures regarding this freezing decision to administrative management agencies in the locality where the asset is located, for example, sending it to the Land Registration Office, or relevant bank branches to request these agencies to proceed with updating the freezing status on the national database system on assets.

10.5. Conditions and Possibility of Applying Freezing Measures Before Filing a Lawsuit

Vietnam’s civil procedure legal system stipulates that the application of provisional emergency measures is not only limited to the stage after the adjudicatory body has officially accepted to resolve the case, but in specific cases, this measure can also be considered by the Court to be applied simultaneously with the time the person whose interests are infringed upon files the lawsuit petition.

This urgent defensive nature regulation needs to be analyzed and understood accurately within the legal framework. An enterprise cannot unilaterally go to the Court to request freezing someone else’s assets without a clear commitment to pursuing a substantive civil lawsuit to clarify the wrongdoing. The regulations of the 2015 Civil Procedure Code set strict requirements that, when submitting a request to apply provisional emergency measures in situations considered urgent, the enterprise must prepare and attach a full valid lawsuit dossier, and simultaneously must immediately fulfill the obligation to deposit a financial security escrow amount at the bank exactly as designated by the Judge. Immediately after the freezing decision is issued by the Court and takes effect to protect the assets, this agency will immediately proceed with the procedural sequences to accept the case according to the correct normal litigation process. This special legal mechanism requires enterprises to possess fast reaction capabilities, synchronized preparation in terms of in-depth litigation strategy, an evidence system proving the breach of obligation, and abundant financial capacity to immediately execute the security deposit.

HARLEY MILLER LAW FIRM

• Email: [email protected]
• Web: hmlf.vn
• Hotline: +84937215585