On May 11th, the Vietnam Social Security (BHXH Vietnam) held a conference to disseminate the 2015 Penal Code, aiming to introduce and explain to all officials, civil servants, and employees in the agency the new points of the Code, including regulations on penalties for violations in the fields of social insurance, health insurance, and unemployment insurance. Deputy General Director of BHXH Vietnam, Dao Viet Anh, attended and chaired the conference.
At the conference, delegates were briefed on the provisions of the Penal Code by Dr. Tran Van Dung, Deputy Director of the Criminal and Administrative Law Department (Ministry of Justice); he also analyzed and commented on the offenses in the fields of social insurance, health insurance, and unemployment insurance.
According to Dr. Tran Van Dung, the 2015 Penal Code contains many important innovations, including issues related to the social insurance sector such as: identifying and recognizing signs of crimes and how to handle them when detected. Accordingly, violations of the law in the field of social insurance and health insurance are defined as acts dangerous to society, committed by subjects with legal capacity (intentionally or unintentionally), violating the regulations of social insurance and health insurance law.
Therefore, the National Assembly carefully considered and specifically codified these provisions in the Penal Code, passing three articles: Article 214 - Fraudulent social insurance and unemployment insurance; Article 215 - Fraudulent health insurance; Article 216 - Evasion of social insurance, health insurance, and unemployment insurance contributions for employees.
A notable new feature in the 2015 Penal Code related to social insurance is the addition of criminal liability for commercial legal entities. The essence of this is to compel violators to compensate those harmed. Previously, violations only resulted in accountability for the head of the business; this new provision requires businesses to use their financial capacity to remedy the consequences, from the perspective of a criminal judgment.
However, this regulation does not exclude individuals who commit violations within a legal entity from being held criminally liable. This means that, simultaneously with the legal entity being prosecuted for a specific crime, individuals involved in the commission of that crime by the legal entity must also bear criminal responsibility (according to Clause 2, Article 75 of the 2015 Penal Code, which stipulates that "the criminal responsibility of a commercial legal entity does not exclude the criminal responsibility of individuals"). Violations can be dealt with through economic penalties with high fines, and the legal entity must also compensate for all damages caused. This avoids situations that lead to business closures and negatively impact the lives of employees…
In his closing remarks at the conference, Deputy Director General Dao Viet Anh requested that all officials, employees, and workers of Vietnam Social Security enhance their awareness and proactively study and understand the 2015 Penal Code, focusing on Articles 214, 215, and 216, in order to better prevent and combat violations of the law in the fields of social insurance, health insurance, unemployment insurance, etc.www.expertis.vn
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