PNJ falls as Dong A Bank case continues with two new defendants

Nguyen Thi Cuc, former head of the Supervision Board of Dong A Bank and member of PNJ’s Management Board

On June 11, Pham Van Phuoc, former general director of VN Food I Nam Dinh, has been prosecuted and arrested on the charge of “abusing trust to appropriate property” (Article 355 of 2015 Criminal Code).

The Ministry of Public Security’s investigation agency has also prosecuted Nguyen Thi Cuc, former head of the Supervision Board of Dong A Bank (and a member of PNJ’s Management Board) on the charge of “negligence that results in serious consequences” (Article 360 of 2015 Criminal Code).

On the same day of being prosecuted in Dong A Bank case, Cuc proposed to resign from her seat on the management board of Phu Nhuan Jewelry JSC (PNJ). Against this movement, Cao Ngoc Dung, chairwoman of PNJ confirmed that Cuc was an independent shareholder at Dong A Bank but not a representative of PNJ in DAB.

The chairman stated that Cuc has not been a deputy general director of PNJ since May 2017, and her resigning from the management board will neither affect the company nor the board.

The incident came after PNJ’s business results took a downturn and news of the prosecution have been pressing PNJ’s stock in the last three consecutive sessions of transactions. The stock fell by 7 per cent to VND171,000.

The expanded investigation in the Dong A Bank case is one of the major cases supervised by the Central Steering Committee for Anti-Corruption. In this case, 25 defendants have been prosecuted and VND2.8 trillion ($123.35 million) of total assets were frozen and seized.

According to the investigation agency, the shareholder group represented by Tran Phuong Binh (DAB’s former general director and vice chairman) held approximately 18 per cent of DAB's charter capital. Binh, the husband of PNJ's chairwoman Cao Ngoc Dung, is identified as the mastermind behind causing financial damage of VND3.405 trillion ($150 million) to the bank.

His violations led to DAB's accumulated losses of VND31 trillion ($1.37 billion) and negative VND25 trillion ($1.1 billion) in equity at the end of 2015.