Oceanbank executives prosecuted for US$66m loss

By Van Anh - Aug 30, 2017 | 09:01 AM GMT+7

TheLEADERNearly 750 people and legal entities involved in the wrongdoings of former Oceanbank Chairman Ha Van Tham were called to court. The session of hearing the cases in the lower court is expected to last 20 days.

Oceanbank executives prosecuted for US$66m loss
Ha Van Tham - former Oceanbank Chairman (Photo: Zing)

According to the indictment, in late 2008, PetroVietnam (PVN) became a strategic shareholder of Oceanbank. Nguyen Xuan Son was introduced by PVN to be a member of the Board of Directors and the General Director of Oceanbank.

At the beginning of 2009, Nguyen Xuan Son proactively suggested Ha Van Tham allocating money for customer care to mobilise capital from PVN and member units. Son could spend these funds without asking for permission of Ha Van Tham.

To mobilize capital source, Oceanbank had to increase its interest rates on borrowings. Meanwhile, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) had set a certain level of ceiling interest. If the mobilization rates exceeded the cap, there had to be another company to settle the exceeding money paid to partners and clients. Ha Van Tham used BSC Company, established by himself in 2008 to pay out that money.

The authorities declared OceanBank had lost more than VND1,500 billion (roughly US$66 million) and Ha Van Tham was responsible for this loss. This is also one of the largest accumulated losses on the stock market today.

Of the 51 defendants of the case, there is a moneybags named Hua Thi Phan (70 years old, former Chairwoman of Phu My Development and Investment Joint Stock Company).

In February 2012, Phan authorised her niece, namely Ngo Kim Hue (a member of the Board of Directors, Deputy General Director of TrustBank), to sell nearly 85% of the bank's charter capital to Tham with the total contract value of nearly VND4.5 billion (about US$198,241). In return, Tham had to take on all of Phan's obligations to pay off the debts and other duties at TrustBank.

Then, Ha Van Tham agreed to transfer TrustBank to Pham Cong Danh (former Chairman of Vietnam Construction Joint Stock Commercial Bank - VNCB).

After taking over, Danh has changed the name of TrustBank into Vietnam Construction Bank. To have VND500 billion (about US$22 million) worth of liquidity for the bank, Danh borrowed Phan's assets as collateral for his loan at Oceanbank.

According to the documents of the legal proceedings, after consulting with Phan and Tham, Danh asked his driver Tran Van Binh to establish Trung Dung Commercial and Services Company Limited to use its identity for the loan.

Knowing that the company did not have the charter capital of VND250 billion (roughly US$11 million) as stated in the business registration certificate, but Ha Van Tham and Nguyen Van Hoan (Deputy General Director of Oceanbank) still approved the loan that OceanBank lent Trung Dung Company, which actually exceeded its permitted capacity to access to the loan. This act took more than VND343 billion (around US$15 million) from Oceanbank.

On October 24th, 2014, Ha Van Tham was prosecuted and detained for investigation. Tham was charged with the following offences: Violations of regulations on lending in the operation of credit institutions; Abusing the power; Intentionally acting in contravention of the State's regulations on economic management, causing serious consequences; embezzlement on assets.