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Multi-millionaire sues gov’t over villas, loses
One of Vietnam’s richest people has lost a lawsuit against the Lam Dong Province Finance Department over a property dispute.
Lam Dong Province People’s Court yesterday rejected Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group’s lawsuit against the provincial Finance Department over some leased villas in Da Lat City.
The first instance court concluded that the group did not meet the progress of developing the leased properties as stipulated in the contract signed with the Department.
Meanwhile, Doan Nguyen Duc, the multi-millionaire owner of Hoang Anh Gia Lai, alleged that the Department partially violated the contract.
Duc claimed that the Finance Department unilaterally terminated Contract No. 818 it signed with Hoang Anh Gia Lai group on March 25, 2008.
Under this Contract, the Department leased 20 villas to the group on Pho Duc Chinh, Nguyen Du and Quang Trung Streets in the province’s Da Lat City for a term of 50 years starting 2007.
Hoang Anh Gia Lai said that after signing the contract, it repaired 8 villas and put them into use with a total area of 24,000 square meters.
The group spent VND974 million (US$47,300) on site clearance and compensation, at the request of the provincial authorities.
However, on October 29, 2010, the Provincial People’s Committee issued a decision to withdraw 18 villas from Hoang Anh Gia Lai to assign them to Trung Thuy Group.
Duc said the decision was just a unilateral and unlawful decision from the authorities, not a case of force majeure as stated in the contract.
Duc said he did not agree to the authorities’ statement that the withdrawal was made based on the fact that the group had not used the leased villas within 12 months from the date of receipt of them.
He also rejected the Department’s allegation that the group had let the properties to deteriorate after lease.
Hoang Anh Gia Lai to appeal
Meanwhile, the court said that before issuing the decision on withdrawal of the properties, the Department had repeatedly urged the group to use them but the group failed to do so.
In many meetings with the department, the group showed non-cooperation or refused to sign on the meetings’ minutes, the court said.
The fact that Hoang Anh Gia Lai left the leased properties unused or unrepaired violated the province’s regulations on leasing villas promulgated in 2005, the court said.
It also judged that the department would have to repay the group the expenses the group had spent on repairing 8 of the 20 villas.
Although these regulations were not officially stated in the contract, Hoang Anh Gia Lai, as a property investor, could not say that it did not know such regulations, the court said.
The withdrawal of the villas by the department was because the investor – Hoang Anh Gia Lai – had violated the lease contract, the court concluded.
Therefore, the court decided to reject the group’s lawsuit against the Lam Dong finance department.
Duc told VnExpress that this judgment was not a final one and he would lodge an appeal to the Appeal Court this week.
Doan Nguyen Duc, chairman of the Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group, was born in 1962 in Nhon My commune, An Nhon District, Binh Dinh province.
He has been well known as a successful entrepreneur with the famous brand Hoang Anh Gia Lai as well as a “big boss” in the world of football.
After failing three university exams, Duc passed in his fourth attempt at the University of Agriculture and Forestry. However, he left the school after one year of studies to become a businessman when he was 22.
He started with a small woodwork factory that provided tables and chairs for students in his native commune. He later expanded his business into manufacturing furniture and then some other fields.
Since 1990, he has been chairman of Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group, which specializes in various fields, including plantation and timber processing, growing and processing of rubber, production of granite, etc.
Since 2001, he has been yearly spending VND10 billion (US$485,000) on football and his Hoang Anh Gia Lai football team became the team that has twice won the V-League championship.
A few years later, the group expanded its business lines in other fields like tourism and real estate.
In 2008, Duc was the richest people on the stock exchange of Vietnam.
He is considered the first Vietnamese who has owned a private plane.
As of November 20, 2010, total capital of Hoang Anh Gia Lai was over VND22,500 billion (US$1.09 billion), of which Duc owned 50.1 percent.
He is now among the richest people in Vietnam.
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