Should be the illegal multi-level trading crime amended into the revised Penal Code?

Last time, the functional forces penalized, withdrew licenses of multi-level companies repeatedly. Could you outline the basic offense signs of these companies generally? To occur these errors, is it true that the management is not strict, not tight?

Last time, the theme of "multi-level" was always hot in the public opinion and in the press. However, due to the not understanding of the State regulations on multi-level sales, there has been a misconception about the multi-level as well as the responsibility of the authorities.

First of all, the State only allows the use of multi-level method to sale, or, in other words, sale the visible products. Anyone using a multi-level method to raise funds or sell services or invisible products (like virtual currency) is doing business illegally.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade is assigned to manage the sale activities under multi-level method by the Government. Therefore, the Ministry does not have the authority to handle the capital raising activity or sale of services, invisible products in a multi-level mode. The Department of Industry and Trade and the Market Management do too.

With the sale of goods in a multi-level method, there may be administrative violations in the different levels, minor offenses are violations of the announcement regulations, reports, training violations… These violations are treated in the form of a fine. The bigger offenses, such as maintaining many codes for the same participant in multi-level sales, are handled in the form of withdrawing the license. Last time, the companies being withdrawn their licenses mainly due to the using many codes for the same participant in multi-level sales.

With the use of the multi-level method for raising funds or to sell services or invisible products, handling and preventing is very difficult because we have removed "illegal business" offense in Penal Code. If the offense was committed, the Police office would have been able to take part in and deal with the illegal multi-level activities a long time ago, and the society was not so frustrated with multi-level activities.

Therefore, It is necessary to distinguish between meaningful multi-level sales and illegal multi-level activities. Once, you have said that the management of meaningful multi-level sales was not difficult, the management of illegal multi-level activities was difficult. So, which measures prevent these illegal activities? It is known that the Ministry of Industry and Commerce has the policy to invite some international experts to Vietnam to learn about the experience of countries in the early detection and prevention of illegal multi-level behavior. So far, how has this problem been implemented?

To prevent the use of multi-level method to raise funds, the sale of services or invisible products without legal basis to deal with these behaviors since they are emerging, the only ways are to promote propaganda to raise people's awareness, at the same time, and try to detect these behaviors as early as possible and give warning to people to avoid them. Over the past time, both of these activities have been strengthened so that these behaviors have been reduced.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has coordinated with the relevant agencies to propose the amendment of illegal multi-level trading into the revised Penal Code to have a basis to handle early and strictly for violators.

The international experts have also come to Vietnam, but they only helped us to perfect regulations on management of meaningful multi-level activities. With other multi-level activities, they thought that there are two handling ways. If the law did not consider it as an illegal one, the dispute among the parties, if any, must be dealt with in accordance with the civil law. If the law considered it to be illegal trading, the Police office should take criminal action. Their way of thinking was clear and simple.

Illustration photo. Source: saigondautu.vn.

Decree 42 is considered as one of the most effective tools for the multi-level sale management. Over time, the Ministry of Industry and Trade held many meetings to draft a decree replacing Decree 42. Could you tell us when the draft will be completed to submit to the Government and which points will be amended in Decree 42

In order to improve the management effectiveness of the multi-level sales, I emphasize on the meaningful multi-level sale, the Decree replacing Decree 42 will have some new points. First of all is to maximize the transparency of the multi-level sale enterprises through requiring the enterprises have a participant management system with servers located in Vietnam, have websites to publicize and update information regularly, they must provide access right into their server when the management agencies request, must pay commissions and bonuses in the form of bank transfer. The decree will also increase the responsibility of people taking part in the multi-level activities under regulations such as banning the behaviors including non-license multi-level activities. Access and implementation of local management activities will be strengthened through regulations requiring that the enterprises have to local representatives, keep records and documents in the localities where they operate.

The draft decree has been appraised by the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Industry and Trade is finalizing to submit to the Government for approval.

Actually, the multi-level sales are very attractive when using super-profits to attract a large part of the people take part in the multi-level sales. So, to avoid risks, avoid falling into the illegal multi-level trap, in your opinion, how will the propaganda have to deploy?

In fact, a person is 18 or over, when he gives money to another person for interest, he participates in a civil transaction. If he does not receive an interest as agreed, he may take the other person to court for a refund. If he thinks the other person has cheated on him, he could report the police to deal with.

The story is really simple. However, there are many people who have been very irresponsible to themselves and their money. They are willing to believe in illusory promises and are willing to give money to others without requiring any written agreement, so it is difficult to handle when they were in trouble. Many people are credulous but many people do it because of greed.

There is not any the State agency that manages credulous or greed but they can promote propaganda to limit them. Once, greed and credulous no longer exist, the multi-level sales will have no chance to implement. Therefore, we have been trying to promote the propaganda in the direction of clarifying the nature of the multi-level sales, confirm that the multi-level sales is a retailing method, not a form of investment for profit and not anyone success when participating in the multi-level sales. This job is really hard and if anyone tries really, their incomes will be only above average.

The propaganda activities should be promoted to as many people as possible, especially in the local media, because the illegal multi-level activities often target localities where people are used to living in the community cohesion, so it is easy to believe the other people.

Thank you, Sir!