HCMC court halts trial of Navibank case

Defendants at the court. (cand.com.vn)

The trial, which began on February 28, was put on hold to give time for the Supreme People’s Procuracy to provide more necessary documents and evidence to serve the judgement.

The documents include a copy of the first-instance criminal judgement dated January 27, 2014 and a copy of the second-instance criminal judgement dated January 7, 2015 of the case involving Huynh Thi Huyen Nhu, former deputy chief of the risk management department of the HCMC branch of VietinBank, who was charged with “swindling to appropriate assets.”

The jury also requested the Supreme People’s Procuracy to supplement account statements of four account owners relating to VND200 billion ($8.7 million) of Navibank’s staff deposited at VietinBank, and other documents.

The defendants brought to trial are former Navibank officials, including former General Director Le Quang Tri, former Deputy General Directors Cao Kim Son Cuong, Nguyen Giang Nam and Nguyen Hung Son, and six others who are former heads of different divisions at Navibank.

During the court, nine out of the ten defendants claimed innocence, saying their acts are not banned in the Law on Credit Organisations and they are irrelevant to Nhu.

According to the indictment of the Supreme People’s Procuracy, from November 19, 2010 to May 27, 2011, the credit council of Navibank, which comprised Le Quang Tri, Cao Kim Son Cuong, Nguyen Hung Son, Nguyen Giang Nam, Tran Thanh Binh (former chief of the division for relations with client businesses), Dinh Thi Doan Trang (former chief of the client services division), Pham Thi Thu Hien (former chief of the legal division), and Nguyen Ngoc Oanh (former chief of the risk management division), signed a document giving credit of VND1.543 trillion ($67.4 million) to 14 employees who later deposited the money at the Nha Be branch of Vietinbank to gain the extra interest that was not shown in contracts.

The extra interest that Nhu paid was more than VND24 billion ($1 million), of which over VND15 billion ($681,800) was transferred to the account of Huynh Vinh Phat (former chief of the accounting division) and over VND9 billion ($409,090) in cash given to Doan Dang Luat (former chief of the capital source division).

Nhu took advantage of the defendants’ acts to appropriate 200 billion VND ($8.7 million) of Navibank, according to the indictment.

The court is scheduled to resume on March 12.