EPLegal is proud to announce that our firm has received recognition as a Tier 1 law firm in Energy and Construction practice in the Benchmark Litigation Asia-Pacific 2022 Edition. This year, we have maintained our rankings for Commercial and transactions (a Tier 2 law firm) as well as International Arbitration Practice (a Recommended law firm).
Additionally, our Founding Partner, Mr. Tony Nguyen, has once again been named a “Litigation Star” in Commercial and Transactions, Construction and International Arbitration.
We would like to express our gratitude to our Partners and Clients for all their time and effort spent working with EPLegal’s team.
Benchmark Litigation, the definitive guide to leading litigation firms and lawyers, provides in-depth law firm and lawyer rankings based on extensive interviews with litigators, dispute resolution specialists and their clients, as well as analysis of the market’s most important cases and firm developments.
For more details, please visit: https://benchmarklitigation.com/Firm/EPLegal-Vietnam/Profile/109397#rankings
EPLEGAL IS FINDING LEGAL ASSOCIATES with major interests in: Projects and Energy, Dispute Resolution, Arbitration.
Key tasks and responsibilities:
• Preparation of legal documents • Collect and analyze professional background materials • Drafting various types of legal documents including contracts, memos and legal opinions • Keep contact with clients, partners and governmental authorities • Other legal administration
Required professional background and skills:
• University degree or higher in law with outstanding academic results; • An LLM degree and/or lawyer certificate; • Strong practice with a wealth of experience in arbitration; • A minimum of 3 years of experience in Law Firm; • Experience in arbitration proceedings is preferred. • Fluency in oral and written Vietnamese and English; • Good practice of customer service and advisor to different nationalities of clients; • Logical mindset and legal analysis skills; • Professional attitude and appearance, flexibility • Outstanding communication skills What we offer: • Challenging international environment where personal development and growth are encouraged • Opportunity to work with high profile clients on high profile transactions • Competitive salary, including benefits in kind.
Work Place:
• TP.HCM: 31C Ly Tu Trong, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1 • HN: Hoang Sam Building, 260 Ba Trieu, Le Dai Hanh How to apply?
If you are interested in applying for the above position please submit your CV to our HR with email: fna@eplegal.com.
EPLegal continues to be highly ranked in the Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2022 edition
EPLegal is delighted to share that our firm continues to be remarkably named as a Tier 2 firm in Shipping and Aviation practice by the Legal 500 this year. We are also proud to be continuously recognised in the following practice areas: Banking & Finance, Corporate and M&A, Dispute Resolution (both Arbitration and Litigation), Projects and Energy.
We would like to express our gratitude to our Partners and Clients for all their time and effort spent working with EPLegal’s team, as well as Legal 500 for their recognition of our firm. Thank you so much to all of you for your trust and companionship.
We are delighted to share that EPLegal has been recognised by Chambers and Partners in the practice areas of Dispute Resolution and Projects, Infrastructure & Energy in the 2022 edition of Chambers Asia-Pacific Guide.
We are also proud that Mr Tony Nguyen, our Founding Partner, has been named by Chambers and Partners 2022 in Projects, Infrastructure & Energy. This marks the fourth consecutive year that Tony receives this honourable individual ranking from Chambers.
We would like to express our gratitude to our Partners and Clients for all their time and effort spent working with EPLegal’s team as well as Chambers and Partners for their recognition of our firm. Thank you so much to all of you for your trust and companionship.
Mr.Tony Nguyen is recoginsed “Future leader” in Who’s Who Legal:
EPLegal congratulates Mr. Tony Nguyen, our Founding & Senior Partner, for being recognised as a “Future Leader” in Who’s Who Legal: Arbitration 2022 edition. It is an honour that Tony is one of three Vietnamese lawyers included in Who’s Who Legal: Arbitration 2022.
Who’s Who Legal is published by Law Business Research Limited, an independent London-based publishing group, which provides research, analysis and reports on the international legal services marketplace. Since 1996 Who’s Who Legal has identified the foremost legal practitioners in multiple areas of business law.
Who’s Who Legal Arbitration selects the world’s leading international arbitrators and pre-eminent arbitration lawyers based on independent research with client recommendation and peer review.
We would like to express our gratitude to our Partners and Clients for all their time and effort spent working with EPLegal’s team.
On the 11th February 2020, Resolution No. 55/NQ-TW on National energy development of Vietnam was issued. Accordingly, the State set out its requirement to develop the gas-fired electricity using LNG, prioritizing investment in technical infrastructure serving the import and consumption of LNG. Adopting a new power supply source will be challenging not just in the technical aspect but also in the legal part. In the light of such situation, this short Article aims to discuss the potential disputes related to the importation of LNG to Vietnam.
Types of LNG disputes
In this Article, 3 types of LNG disputes are considered. These disputes are among the most common and became even more visible in 2020 because of the corona virus disease (“Covid-19”).
Price dispute
The first one is price dispute. This happens in situation where LNG spot price is significantly lower than those in long-term contracts, buyers would then trigger the price review provision to mitigate their loss. On the other hand, sellers would demand raise the contract price under the same provision if spot prices appeared much more profitable.
An example can be seen in the ICC case between the Italian energy utility Edison (“Edison”) and Qatari company Rasgas (“Rasgas”). The fact was that Edison signed a 25-year long-term contract to purchase LNG from Rasgas at the price indexed to oil price. Subsequently, Edison would resell the gas from LNG to its consumers. However, when oil prices increased, the spot market gas prices went the opposite direction. As a result, Edison must sell gas to its customer at a loss and it had to refer this matter to ICC to adjust the LNG price under the long-term contract. According to Global Arbitration Review, Edison was awarded in its favor.
These disputes are among the most common and became even more visible in 2020 because of the corona virus disease (“Covid-19”).
Force majeure dispute
The second type of disputes are those that relate to claims of force majeure event. In 2020, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (“CNOOC”) as the LNG importer declared force majeure because the Chinese government imposes quarantines and travel restrictions. In contrast, the major suppliers such as Total and Shell rejected such declaration. Similar cases took place in India where Indian LNG importers had to issue force majeure notice as there was a national wide lockdown which heavily affected the domestic gas demand and port operations. Further information are rather limited but it is possible to argue that disputes may arise from such incident.
Under Delivery
Thirdly, the disputes related to Under Delivery. According to the Special Issue on “Changing LNG Market and Contracts” of OGEL,[5] this type of dispute happens when seller of a long-term contract purposely fails to deliver a quantity of LNG and sell such quantity in the spot market at a more profitable price. Knowing such intention of sellers, buyers might not be happy with the compensation they get from the provisions of the long-term contract. Instead, buyers would seek maximum damages through Arbitration.
Risk of encountering such disputes for Vietnamese LNG importers
In the LNG market, Vietnam is still a new buyer and it can only be predicted at this point if the above-mentioned disputes are likely to occur to Vietnamese importers.
Current status of LNG importation
Currently, the main purpose of importing LNG has been to fuel the thermal power plants such as the Quang Ninh LNG power plant[1], Son My 1 & 2 Power plant[2] and the Nhon Trach 3 and 4 power plant.[3] Based on the information available on PetroTimes,[4] the public learned that PetroVietnam Gas Joint Stock Corporation (“PV GAS”) has been working on LNG supply by signing several LNG Master Sales Agreements (“MSA”). In order to determine the risk of having a price dispute between PV GAS and the LNG suppliers, it is important to understand how LNG (or natural gas from such LNG) is priced under the contract between PV GAS and its consumer (the LNG power plants). However, the price clauses in such contracts are unlikely to be made public and therefore, this Article will only assume that LNG (or natural gas) being sold by PV GAS to its consumer is calculated based on the price of LNG at which PV GAS purchases from LNG suppliers (“Imported LNG price”).
Should this be the case, PV GAS (or any LNG importer who supply LNG to LNG power plant) should not suffer any loss which is similar to Edison’s case examined in Section I above. Regardless of how the Imported LNG price fluctuates, PV GAS can charge its consumer at a profitable price.
Furthermore, in MSAs, LNG is only sold through spot sales, meaning buyers do not take commitment to purchase a fixed quantity of LNG a year. Therefore, even if Vietnamese importers suffer losses from Imported LNG price, it would be a one-off case and much less severe than those that we see from a long-term contract.
LNG is only sold through spot sales, meaning buyers do not take commitment to purchase a fixed quantity of LNG a year.
Force majeure
In term of force majeure, a force majeure clause is rather universal and focuses on two elements: (1) an event beyond the control of the parties and (2) the event prevents a party from performing its obligation despite that party’s best effort to remedy the situation. There should be no major difference between a MSA and a long-term contract. The question is whether government’s order to restrict port operation can be a valid force majeure event for Vietnamese importers. The Vietnamese importers’ ability to perform their obligation under MSAs will be heavily dependent on the functioning of a very limited number of LNG receiving terminals. It is expected that the Thi Vai LNG and My Son LNG terminals will be available in the next few years.[5] In the performance of the relevant MSAs, if there is any interruption to these two terminals, Vietnamese importer would not have reasonable alternatives at hand and could, theoretically, use it as a ground to declare force majeure event.
Nevertheless, the importers must still be advised that force majeure is a very complicated matter to prove. There are other factors to constitute a valid force majeure event, such as duration of the event or notice of the affected party.
For the last risk on seller’s under delivery, it should be less likely to occur to Vietnamese importers as long as LNG is still purchased through MSA and spot sales. Each spot sale will have its own price or pricing method, which is negotiated and agreed upon by buyer and seller when they execute such sale. Parties’ commitments in this case are far less substantial and they will be better protected against a fluctuating market compared to the parties of a long-term contract.
Vietnamese LNG importers are still in a “trial period” which is a relatively safe position in comparison to the major LNG buyers in the World.
Conclude
As discussed above and strictly speaking about the above-mentioned disputes, Vietnamese LNG importers are still in a “trial period” which is a relatively safe position in comparison to the major LNG buyers in the World. However, after the expiration of the MSAs, it can be anticipated that Vietnamese LNG importers will eventually turn to long-term LNG contracts with considerably higher risk involved. Therefore, learning from the MSAs, understanding the world’s practice and having a well drafted contract will be crucial for Vietnamese importers.
The current pandemic negatively impacts the foreign trade activities, especially in the context of the international sale of goods contract. In this situation, the affected parties invoke a force majeure event which is the ongoing pandemic to release themselves from the liability. However, they often make mistakes of applying the the force majeure clause.
Therefore, we are pleased to introduce the article “Can Covid-19 serve as force majeure?” written by our Partner Tony Nguyen and associate Son Nguyen on Vietnam Investment Review No 1566 dated 18/10/2021. The article shows common missteps made by the breaching parties and provides recommendations to avoid them.
The current pandemic negatively impacts the foreign trade activities, especially in the context of the international sale of goods contract.
EPLegal continues to be highly ranked in Asialaw Profiles 2022 and Asialaw Leading Lawyers 2022
We are thrilled to share that EPLegal has once again been recognised as Highly Recommended Law Firm in the Energy practice area in Asialaw Profiles 2022. Our firm has also amongst Recommended Law Firms in Dispute Resolution and Banking & Finance practice areas this year.
In addition, our Founding Partner, Mr Tony Nguyen has been named as a Distinguished Practitioner in Dispute Resolution and Energy in Asia Leading Lawyers 2022 Edition.
We would like to express our gratitude to our Partners and Clients for all their time and effort spent working with EPLegal’s team.
For more details, please visit: https://www.asialaw.com/Firm/eplegal-vietnam/Profile/1523#profile
On 17 August 2021, EPLegal and Peter & Kim held a specialized webinar on “Oil & Gas, Energy Disputes in the Covid-19 era: An Asian perspective” at 14:00hrs (Hanoi time, GMT+7) through the Zoom Meeting platform.
Our discussion included topics such as the dynamics and suggestions for dispute resolution in the oil & gas and energy sectors, with a focus on construction disputes, gas agreement disputes and tax-related disputes. It also touched on particular issues, such as the use of experts and technical witnesses in energy disputes while travel restrictions remain in place. Our distinguished Panelists with diverse backgrounds presented instances from Vietnam, Korea, and other Asian countries in their discussion of these topics.
From the beginning, our Webinar has received a huge amount of support from the clients which was proven by the attendance of nearly 80 people, both domestic and abroad. This is a great motivation for EPLegal to continue to hold even more valuable and informative events for our precious clients.
If there was any issue that occurred during the event, please feel free to contact us and provide feedback to our organizing team via email info@eplegal.com so that we can improve the quality of our upcoming events and make them even more successful.
We are thrilled to introduce to you for the first time a specialized webinar jointly presented by EPLegal and Peter & Kim: “Oil & Gas, Energy Disputes in the Covid-19 Era: An Asian Perspective” via zoom platform at 14:00hrs (Hanoi time, GMT+7) on the 17 August 2021.
OVERVIEW
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic with a frozen economy and lockdown orders in many Asian countries have thrown the energy industry into unprecedented challenges, and at the same time caused the number of disputes to skyrocket. Yet it is not easy to resolve these disputes where there are on-going waves of COVID-19 infections, and restrictions on travel and construction work remain in place.
This webinar will provide insights on the dynamics and suggestions for dispute resolution in the oil & gas and energy sectors, with a focus on construction disputes, gas agreement disputes and tax related disputes. It will also touch on particular issues, such as the use of experts and technical witnesses in energy disputes while travel restrictions remain in place. Panellists with diverse backgrounds will cite examples from Vietnam, Korea and other Asian countries in their discussion of these topics.
WEBINAR SPEAKERS
We are pleased to introduce our guest speakers:
1. Mrs. Annie Ngo
Annie Ngo is the Managing Partner of EPLegal. Annie is a commercial, contract and legal expert in the Vietnam Oil and Gas sector with 19 years of working experience. Annie previously used to work for Unocal Houston, an Oil company in the USA and then held managerial roles in the procurement and legal divisions of leading oil & gas companies in Vietnam such as Cuu Long JOC, PetroVietnam Exploration and Production Corporation (PVEP) and Bien Dong Petroleum Operating Company (BDPOC). As Managing Manager of EPLegal, Annie has experienced working with PetroVietnam Group and its subsidiaries such as PVGAS, BSR, PTSC and PVEP, on all legal, commercial, contract and procurement matters relating to the upstream operations. She has also advised and acted for foreign investors/operators in cases related to energy disputes in Vietnam.
2. Mr. Tony Nguyen
Tony is among a few top-tiered project & energy lawyers in Vietnam who are highly rated by Chambers, Legal500, Asialaw Profiles and other international publications. Tony is also a Benchmark-Litigation’s dispute resolution star and a to-go-counsel for international arbitration involving Vietnamese parties. He frequently represents large corporate clients for disputes settled under the rules of Vietnam International Arbitration Center (VIAC), SIAC and ICC, etc. He is the first Vietnamese fellow member of CIArb (FCIArb), past chairman of CIArb Vietnam steering committee, a member of the VIAC’s Expert Advisory Council. Tony actively participates in training, research and drafting activities of VIAC rules, VMC rules and the code of ethics of VMC mediators. In January 2020, he was appointed as Deputy Director of Vietnam Mediation Center (VMC) and in the same year he co-founded Vietnam Institute for International Arbitration (VIArb), the first independent ADR training institute in Vietnam, and holds the position of Managing Director until now. Tony also actively practices as an arbitrator of VIAC, THAC, IDRRMI, BIAIC and other reputable regional and international arbitration centers.
3. Mr. Konstantin Christie
Konstantin Christie is a partner at Peter & Kim in Geneva. For the past 14 years, his practice has focused on international commercial and investment arbitration, as well as disputes under public international law. A native Russian and English speaker, he regularly handles cases from eastern Europe, Russia and the former CIS, and more recently stemming from the Southeast Asia. Konstantin was admitted to the Bars of New York and Massachusetts in 2007, and trained in Geneva and Paris. He has a law degree (JD) from Suffolk University and a Bachelor of Science (criminal justice) degree from Northeastern University in Boston.
4. Mr. Matthew Finn
Matthew is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, Chartered Institute of Building and a Member of Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering. He is regularly appointed as an expert witness in the field of quantum (damages) in construction matters. Matthew is a certified civil and commercial mediator, construction adjudicator, dispute board practitioner and a domestic and international arbitrator and sits on over 30 worldwide arbitration panels. He has also been recognised in Who’s Who Legal in Arbitration, Quantum and Delay, and Construction chapters in publications in 2018-2021.
5. Mrs. Charis Tan
Charis Tan is a partner at Peter & Kim in Singapore. She specialises in international arbitration and public international law, and is admitted in three jurisdictions (Singapore, England & Wales and New York). Her experience includes investment and commercial arbitrations under ICSID, ICC, SIAC, SCC and UNCITRAL Rules. Charis has acted for States in high profile cases before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). She has also been appointed as an Arbitrator in both commercial arbitration and State-to-State cases. Charis advises National Oil Companies (NOCs) and International Oil Companies (IOCs) in both contentious and non-contentious upstream oil and gas matters, and a unique area of her specialisation is where oil blocks straddle disputed boundaries. Charis has been recommended by Legal 500 for international arbitration and named a Future Leader in arbitration by Who’s Who Legal and GAR.
Panelists with diverse backgrounds will cite examples from Vietnam, Korea, and other Asian countries in their discussion of these topics. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear these talented people speak at the webinar on Oil & Gas and Energy disputes, grab your tickets here: https://eplegal.vn/en/energy-disputes/
