Former Chairman of the Board of Directors of Trust Bank Hoang Van Toan (first row, left), former Director General of Trust Bank Tran Son Nam (first row, right), and other defendants listen to the court's verdict on May 4 (Photo: VNA) HCM City (VNA) – The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Courton May 4 gave punishments from three-year suspended prison sentences toseven-year imprisonment to the defendants charged with “violating regulationson lending in activities of credit institutions” at Dai Tin Commercial JointStock Bank (Trust Bank), the predecessor of the Vietnam Construction Bank(VNCB).
According to the verdict, the Trust Bank’scredit council, comprising Hoang Van Toan (former Chairman of the Board ofDirectors), Tran Son Nam (former Director General), Lam Hong Trinh (formerDeputy General Director), Ho Trong Thang (former head of the credit managementdivision), Ngo Duc Tri (former Deputy General Director), Tran Thi Hong Phuong(former director of the accounting division), and Pham Thi Quynh Ngan (formerhead of the legal division), verified and approved the lending of 370 billionVND (equivalent to 16.2 million USD at present) to Thinh Quoc company and 280billion VND (12.3 million USD) to Dai Hoang Phuong company with an interestrate of 15 percent in 12 months to purchase over 5,000 sq.m of land at Chi LangStadium in Da Nang city.
When they considered the credit provision, themembers of the credit council were found to have not complied with regulationsby accepting loan applications without financial reports and impreciselyassessing the clients’ financial strength.
In fact, these businesses were established byPham Cong Danh, former Chairman of the VNCB and Chairman of the members’council and Director General of the Thien Thanh Group, but did not operate andtheir loan applications were fake.
The defendants based on the verificationcertificate of the future asset whose value was augmented by many times toapprove the credit provision. In fact, the clearance in the land lot at the ChiLang Stadium hadn’t been finished while there hadn’t been any certificates orinvestment activities in this land.
Their acts caused a loss of more than 470 billionVND (20.6 million USD) to the bank.
The court decided to give the prison terms ofseven years to Hoang Van Toan and six years to Tran Son Nam. Three of the fiveother defendants were sentenced to three years in prison while the remainingtwo received three-year suspended prison sentences.
Pham Cong Danh has to bear responsibility forcompensating for the loss in the case. This compensation responsibilitywas ruled in the verdicts of the first-instance trial of the HCM City People’sCourt on September 9, 2016 and the appeal trial of the HCM City High-levelPeople’s Court on January 24, 2017. Therefore, the defendants in this case werenot forced to compensate for the loss.-VNA
VNA
