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LAWLINK VIETNAM®

Founded in 2011 by attorney Thuy Le, Lawlink Vietnam has grown quickly and is now one of the more reputable business law firms in Vietnam provides top quality services to businesses, tailored by industry and personalized to each client's needs.

We are locally established but internationally recognized by clients from blue-chip companies to start-ups.

Our core services are Investment, Corporate and Commercial, Mergers and Acquisitions, and Intellectual Properties Protections.

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"The good lawyer is not the man who has an eye to every side and angle of contingency and qualifies all his qualifications, but who throws himself on your part so heartily that he can get you out of the scrape" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

WHETHER NAMING THE BAR AS “BUDDHA” VIOLATES THE LAW OF VIET NAM?

Last week, “Buddha Bar & Grill” bar in District 2, Ho Chi Minh City suddenly became the“spotlight” on online news and social networks following an incident relating to an airline pilot, who was recently tested positive to COVID-19 and believed to have infected dozens of other guests at the bar on the of his present.

The incident led to several controversial articles expressing opinions about the bar’s name, for example, Tuoi Tre newspaper on March 25th, 2020 had posted an article from an angry reader “How could you name a bar after “Buddha”; Some other online newspapers (for example: “News.zing.vn”) cited a statement of an official of District 2: “This bar registered its business and displayed signboards under different names, if registered as Buddha, it would not have been permitted for sure because of religious reasons”!

In this article, we shall not discuss the contagious event or the issue “This bar registers one way, named another”, but only give analysts, professional opinions and legal basis in term of rights in naming the enterprise, trade names in the business activities of the owner under the law of Vietnam.

FIRSTLY, REGARDING THE “BUDDHA” NAME

According to the definition in Cambridge Dictionary, Buddha is the name of a religious leader who lived in India about 2500 years ago, whose teachings led to the development of Buddhism. Some Vietnamese dictionaries define briefly that Buddha is “Đức Phật” or “Phật”, hence, the meaning of this word in Vietnamese concerning a religion, which is Buddhism.