Things awaiting court determination in Trinh Van Quyet case

This afternoon, August 5, after two weeks of trial and deliberation, the Hanoi People's Court sentenced former FLC Chairman Trinh Van Quyet and 49 accomplices in the case.Fraudulent appropriation of propertyandStock market manipulation.

The debate mainly focused on determining the number of victims and damages of the case.

How many victims?

Clause 1, Article 62 of the 2015 Criminal Procedure Code defines: A victim is an individual who directly suffers physical, mental, or property damage, or an agency or organization whose property or reputation is damaged due to a crime or threat of damage.

In the indictment, the Supreme People's Procuracy noted that 30,403 investors bought Faros' ROS shares during the initial sale. They were the ones who "spent real money to buy Trinh Van Quyet's ROS shares on the stock exchange without knowing that the shares had been fraudulently inflated in value by Mr. Quyet and his accomplices." Therefore, the indictment identified them as victims of the case.

However, during the days of debate, lawyer Vu Dang Hai Yen, one of the four people defending Trinh Van Quyet, said that the actual number of victims was only 133.

In addition to the fact that many victims on the list are duplicated, lawyer Yen cited random search results showing that many cases on the list of victims sold ROS shares and made hundreds of millions of dong in profits.

The lawyer thereby said that the possibility of profit for the 30,403 investors who initially bought ROS shares "is very large". Because after Mr. Quyet initially sold ROS shares to the market, the price "increased continuously for a long time", from July to December 2021, from the initial VND 2,000/share, to VND 13,600/share.

According to the lawyer, the victims who initially bought ROS and sold during the price increase period all made a profit, so they cannot be considered victims. In addition, of these more than 30,000 people, many have not been approached by the prosecution agency to express their opinions, and there will be many people who sold at a profit, so there will be no compensation requests.

The lawyer argued that the criterion for determining damages is the remaining value of F0 ROS shares (F0 shares are from the accounts of Trinh Van Quyet and 15 original shareholders). Therefore, investors who have purchased F0 shares only meet the first criterion. If these investors have sold or do not have any remaining F0 ROS shares in their accounts, they will not meet the next criteria of the list of victims.

The defense team for Mr. Quyet's two sisters also said that identifying the victims and the amount of money embezzled is "extremely important" because it is related to the prosecution framework, sentence, and amount of money the client must pay.

The lawyer requested that the panel of judges only recognize the status of 133 victims with a total actual damage of more than 2.2 billion VND, so "Mr. Quyet has actually fulfilled his compensation obligation".

By July 26, Mr. Quyet was recorded by the Procuracy as having compensated more than 237 billion VND.

In response, the Procuracy noted more than 5,000 cases of duplicate names and personal information, as proposed by lawyer Yen, thereby reducing the number of victims to more than 25,000 people. However, it did not record its opinion on the number of 133 victims.

The Procuracy cited the investigation results determining that out of the total 430 million ROS shares (worth 4,300 billion VND) listed on the stock exchange, only over 1,100 billion VND was real capital contribution; the remaining 3,100 billion VND was fake capital.

"The initial investors spent real money to buy more than 391 million shares with fake value, suffering a loss of more than VND3,621 billion. They are identified as victims with complete grounds," the representative of the Procuracy stated, adding that so far 133 people have filed a claim for compensation for damages, the rest have the right to continue to claim compensation according to regulations.

Also in this content, some investors present at the court also requested to change their procedural status. They are among more than 63,000 people who bought 5 manipulated FLC stocks (FLC, HAI, AMD, GAB, ART), summoned by the court as people with related rights and obligations.

Speaking at the trial, some people asked for leniency for Mr. Quyet so that he could continue to build and operate his business and re-list the five stocks. However, the remaining people asked the court to consider them as victims, because they spent too much money buying stocks but now "no one wants them".

Will Mr. Trinh Van Quyet pay more money to remedy the consequences?

The number of victims and damages in the case, as decided by the panel of judges this afternoon, will be one of the factors determining the prison sentences of the defendants, of whom Mr. Quyet is identified as the mastermind.

Mr. Quyet is being proposed by the Procuracy for 19-20 years in prison for the crime.Fraudulent appropriation of property,according to point a, Clause 4, Article 174 of the Penal Code with a penalty of 12-20 years or life imprisonment; and 5-6 years in prison for the crimeStock market manipulation,According to point b, clause 2, Article 211 of the Penal Code, the penalty range is 2-7 years.

During the defense, Mr. Quyet's lawyers repeatedly compared the case with the case of former chairman Tan Hoang Minh, who was prosecuted for the same crime, but was sentenced to 8 years in prison by the court of first instance (currently appealing for a reduced sentence).

Mr. Do Anh Dung and his son were considered for a reduced sentence because they had completed their obligation to compensate for all damages in the case before the trial took place, more than 8,600 billion VND, double the damages in Mr. Trinh Van Quyet's case.

Based on the analysis that "there were only 133 victims with a total amount of only 2.2 billion VND", Mr. Quyet's lawyer therefore believes that his client has also overcome all the consequences of the case. Up to this point, the lawyer believes that "the danger to society has decreased a lot", so he requests the panel of judges to reduce the sentence even more.

The Penal Code stipulates 22 mitigating circumstances, of which "the offender voluntarily repairs, compensates for damage or remedies the consequences" is considered one of them (according to point b, clause 1, Article 51 of the Penal Code). However, the law has not specifically stipulated what percentage of the damage can be remedied to reduce the sentence.

In the indictment on July 26 and the response on July 29, the prosecution agency acknowledged Mr. Quyet's "positive cooperative attitude and desire to remedy the consequences", but in reality, the prosecution agency only had the basis to determine that the defendant had reimbursed more than 200 billion VND, and the other defendants more than 6 billion VND.

"The total amount is only about 5% of the total damage, insignificant compared to the damage caused by the defendants' particularly large actions, more than 4,300 billion VND," the Procuracy responded and said that strict punishment should be applied.

Defending himself, the former FLC chairman estimated his personal assets at nearly VND5,000 billion, more than enough to cover the consequences of the case. However, most of Mr. Quyet's assets, including hundreds of millions of shares, real estate, etc., are being seized and frozen.

In his defense on the afternoon of July 26, Mr. Quyet's lawyer also said that the defendant's brother-in-law expressed his wish to pay an additional VND15 billion to remedy the consequences. However, in the following 3 days of debate, there was no further update on this issue.