Trial of former FLC chairman Trinh Van Quyet opens, only 30 victims show up

The trial of Trinh Van Quyet, former chairman of real estate developer FLC Group, and 49 others opened on Monday, with only over 30 out of nearly 100,000 victims present in court.

Among the 50 accused, 13 are from FLC Group, including Trinh Van Quyet, who is also former chairman of Bamboo Airways; Trinh Thi Minh Hue, former accountant of FLC Group and Quyet's younger sister; Trinh Thi Thuy Nga, former accountant of FLC Group, also Quyet's younger sister; Huong Tran Kieu Dung, former permanent vice chairwoman of FLC Group and chairwoman of BOS Securities JSC; and Nguyen Thien Phu, former chief accountant of FLC Group.

Quyet is charged with fraudulent appropriation of property and stock market manipulation, with his two younger sisters.

The jury had summoned 30,403 investors who bought shares in FLC Faros Construction JSC, coded ROS, in the first offering. In addition, more than 63,000 investors were also called on as people with related rights and obligations.

However, just over 30 of them appeared in court on the opening day of the trial.

This case also involves a series of former leaders and officials of the State Securities Commission (SSC) and the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE). Among them are Tran Dac Sinh, former chairman of the HoSE; Le Hai Tra, former deputy director of the HoSE; and Le Cong Dien, head of the public company supervision department at the SSC.

About 80 lawyers have registered to defend the accused, including four representing Quyet. In the main hall, the court had prepared more than 50 laptops to serve lawyers during litigation.

Quyet has been accused of stock market manipulation and fraudulently appropriating $157.6 mln.

According to investigators, from May 2017 to January 2022, he directed his younger sisters and accomplices to take the names of employees and relatives to make documents and carry out procedures to establish companies and open securities and bank accounts.

These people then carried out a series of market manipulation actions to increase the prices of five tickers – AMD of FLC Stone JSC, HAI of HAI Agrochem JSC, GAB of FLC Mining Investment & Asset Management JSC, FLC of FLC Group and ART of BOS Securities JSC. Then Quyet directed that the shares be sold, earning illegal profits of more than VND723 billion ($28.49 million).

Previously, from 2014 to September 2016, Quyet directed leaders and employees of FLC Faros and other companies under FLC Group and relatives to act as shareholders to prepare and sign false capital contribution documents that increased on paper the charter capital of Faros from VND1.5 billion ($59,100) to VND4.3 trillion ($169.4 million).

Next, they submitted an application for Faros to become a public company and registered the listing of 430 million ROS shares based on the company’s false charter capital. After successfully listing the ticker, Quyet and his accomplices sold more than 391 million shares, appropriating more than VND3.6 trillion ($141.84 million) from investors.