Yes, but only on narrow grounds and within a short deadline. A party can ask the competent Vietnamese court to set aside (annul) an award made by a tribunal seated in Vietnam if there was no valid arbitration agreement, the tribunal or procedure departed from the agreement or the law, the dispute was outside the tribunal’s jurisdiction, evidence was forged, an arbitrator was bribed, or the award contradicts the fundamental principles of Vietnamese law. The court does not re-decide the case.
This matters to both sides. If you lost, the set-aside application is your only route to the courts, and it closes quickly. If you won, you should expect the other side to try it, sometimes simply to delay payment, and you should know how to defend the award. The guide below explains the grounds in plain English, the process in principle, and the steps during the arbitration that make an award harder to attack.
Which awards can be set aside, and which cannot
Set-aside proceedings in Vietnam apply to awards made by tribunals seated in Vietnam, whether administered by VIAC, another Vietnamese centre or an ad hoc tribunal. Foreign awards, made by tribunals seated abroad, cannot be annulled by Vietnamese courts. They can only be refused recognition in Vietnam, and any annulment must be sought at the seat abroad.
Not every decision a tribunal makes is an award for this purpose. Procedural orders, decisions on interim measures and many interim rulings are not final awards. Decisions on jurisdiction follow a separate route: if a tribunal decides that it has jurisdiction, a party can ask the court to review that decision within a short period, while the arbitration usually continues. Using that route early can be better than waiting to raise jurisdiction in a set-aside application after the final award.
Partial awards on some claims, issued before the final award, can raise their own timing questions. Treat each award as potentially starting a deadline, and check with counsel whether it is final enough to be challenged.
A settlement recorded by the tribunal as a decision recognising the parties’ agreement is generally treated differently from a contested award, because both parties consented to the outcome. Challenges to such a decision are far narrower in practice.
The set-aside grounds in plain English
The grounds come from Vietnam’s commercial arbitration law and are applied strictly. The court checks whether one of them is proven; it does not weigh whether the award is fair or wise.
| Ground | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| No arbitration agreement, or an invalid one | The signatory lacked authority or capacity, the dispute was not arbitrable, the agreement was not in written form, or consent was obtained by fraud or coercion |
| Composition or procedure not as agreed or as required by law | The wrong number of arbitrators, an arbitrator appointed outside the agreed method, or a serious departure from the agreed rules |
| Dispute outside the tribunal’s jurisdiction | The award decides matters not covered by the arbitration agreement; the court may annul only the part that goes beyond it |
| Forged evidence | Evidence on which the tribunal relied to make the award was fabricated |
| Corrupt arbitrator | An arbitrator received money, property or other benefits from a party, affecting objectivity |
| Contrary to fundamental principles of Vietnamese law | The award violates basic principles of Vietnamese law, not merely a mandatory rule or a point the losing party disagrees with |
The party asking for annulment must prove the ground, except for the last one, which the court can raise itself. Disagreement with the tribunal’s reading of the contract or the evidence, however strong, is not a ground.
How a set-aside application proceeds
The outline below reflects the general structure. Confirm the competent court and exact time limits for your case, since court organisation changed in 2025.
- The losing party receives the award. A short deadline to apply for annulment starts from the date of receipt.
- Within that deadline, the applicant files with the competent court a written application stating the grounds and attaching the award, the arbitration agreement and supporting evidence, with Vietnamese translations where needed.
- The court notifies the other party and the arbitration centre or tribunal, and may request the case file.
- A panel of judges considers the application at a session. The parties can present their views; the court reviews the file against the statutory grounds without re-examining the merits.
- The court may pause the proceedings to give the tribunal an opportunity to remedy certain defects, if the parties request it and the court considers it possible.
- The court issues a decision either annulling the award, in whole or in part, or refusing the application. The decision on annulment is generally final.
If the award is annulled, the parties can make a new arbitration agreement, or the dispute can be brought to court. If the application is refused, the award stands and can be enforced.
The waiver trap: object during the arbitration, not after
Vietnamese arbitration law contains a waiver principle. If you know that a rule of the arbitration agreement or the applicable rules has been breached and you continue with the arbitration without objecting within the time allowed, you may lose the right to object later. Courts take this seriously, and it defeats many set-aside applications built on procedural complaints.
In practice this means raising objections in writing when the problem occurs: when an arbitrator is appointed in a way you think is wrong, when a deadline is changed without agreement, when evidence is admitted late without a chance to respond, or when the tribunal refuses a reasonable request for a hearing. Ask the tribunal to record your objection. If the award is later challenged on that point, the record shows the objection was made in time.
Parties also lose arguments by accepting a tribunal’s jurisdiction implicitly. A respondent that files a full defence on the merits without raising its jurisdictional objection at the start may be found to have accepted the tribunal’s authority.
If you won: protecting the award
Insist on proper notice throughout. Most successful challenges to arbitration in many countries begin with failures of notice. Make sure every document goes to the right address by a provable method, and that the award records how notice was given.
Ask the tribunal to deal with every claim. An award that leaves a claim undecided, or decides something not claimed, invites a jurisdiction argument. Before the award, a short list of issues agreed with the tribunal helps.
Use correction and additional award requests. Arbitration law allows a party to ask the tribunal, within a short time after the award, to correct clerical errors, interpret a point or issue an additional award on a claim that was presented but not decided. Fixing a gap through the tribunal is safer than leaving it for the court.
Prepare the enforcement file in parallel. A set-aside application does not automatically make the debtor pay, and it may be used to delay. Meanwhile, identify assets and prepare the enforcement request so you can move as soon as the court refuses the application or the deadline passes.
If you lost: deciding whether to apply
A set-aside application is not a second chance to argue the case. Before filing, test each potential ground honestly against the evidence. Was there a real departure from the agreed procedure, and did you object at the time? Is there proof that evidence was forged, or only suspicion? Is the claimed violation of fundamental principles truly a basic principle, or a mandatory rule the tribunal applied differently from how you would have liked?
Weigh the cost and the relationship as well. An application keeps the dispute alive, adds legal costs, and may harden the other side’s approach to enforcement. In some cases, a negotiated payment schedule after the award produces a better commercial result than an unsuccessful court challenge. On the other hand, when a genuine ground exists, such as an arbitrator who failed to disclose a serious conflict, the application is a legitimate safeguard and the deadline should not be allowed to pass.
If you decide to apply, prepare quickly. The deadline is short, the application must state its grounds clearly, and evidence such as correspondence showing your objections must be collected and translated where needed.
A hypothetical example: what a court is likely to look at
Take a hypothetical example. A Korean equipment supplier wins a VIAC award against a manufacturer in Bac Ninh for unpaid instalments under a sales contract with an English-language clause. The manufacturer applies to set the award aside, arguing three points: that the tribunal wrongly rejected its evidence about defects, that one hearing was held online although it preferred an in-person hearing, and that awarding interest at the contractual rate violates fundamental principles of Vietnamese law.
On the first point, the court would be unlikely to intervene, because weighing evidence is the tribunal’s job and disagreement with its assessment is not a ground. On the second, the outcome would depend on what the rules and the agreement allowed, whether the manufacturer had a fair opportunity to present its case online, and whether it objected in time; if it joined the online hearing without protest, the waiver principle works against it. On the third, a contractual interest rate is a matter of contract and mandatory rules rather than a basic principle of Vietnamese law, unless something truly exceptional is shown.
The example is simplified and invented, and real cases turn on their documents. It shows the pattern, though: applications that repackage disagreement with the result rarely succeed, while those based on concrete, timely objected procedural failures deserve careful attention from both sides.
When you need a Vietnamese lawyer
Set-aside proceedings take place in a Vietnamese court, in Vietnamese, on short deadlines, and turn on how Vietnamese judges interpret grounds such as fundamental principles of law. Whether you are applying or defending, a licensed Vietnamese lawyer should handle the court side. Ideally, the same counsel or a colleague followed the arbitration, so that objections were raised at the right time and the record supports your position.
For a foreign party, counsel also bridges the gap between how arbitration is discussed internationally and how Vietnamese courts frame the same concepts in Vietnamese. Terms such as public policy, fundamental principles and waiver carry particular meanings in Vietnamese court practice, and submissions that simply translate an international brief tend to miss the points a Vietnamese judge will focus on.
Contact counsel on the day the award arrives, both to calendar the annulment deadline and to plan for enforcement or a response to a challenge. Check the current competent court, filing requirements and time limits with the court or a licensed lawyer, since these were affected by the 2025 reorganisation of the courts.
Frequently asked questions
How long do I have to apply to set aside an arbitral award in Vietnam?
The deadline is short and runs from the date you receive the award. It can be extended only in limited cases such as force majeure. Confirm the exact current period with a licensed Vietnamese lawyer as soon as the award arrives.
Can the court change the amount awarded?
No. The court either annuls the award, wholly or partly where a part exceeds the tribunal’s jurisdiction, or refuses the application. It does not substitute its own decision on the amount or rewrite the tribunal’s reasoning.
Can a foreign award be set aside by a Vietnamese court?
No. Annulment in Vietnam applies to awards made by tribunals seated in Vietnam. A foreign award can only be refused recognition in Vietnam; any annulment must be sought before the courts at the seat of arbitration abroad.
Does filing a set-aside application stop enforcement?
An application generally delays enforcement in practice, because enforcement agencies look at whether a challenge is pending. Winning parties should prepare their enforcement file in parallel so they can act once the application is resolved.
What happens after an award is annulled?
The dispute is not decided either way. The parties may sign a new arbitration agreement and start again, or the claimant can bring the dispute to the competent court. Time limits for bringing claims should be checked carefully at that point.