The State Securities Commission of Vietnam has suspended the professional status of several auditors of Deloitte Vietnam for their alleged involvement in the Saigon Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SCB) scandal.

These auditors include Pham Hoai Nam, Le Dinh Tu, Do Hong Duong, and Tran Van Dang, with Tu serving as a deputy general director who signed the 2019 semi-annual audit report for the lender.

The suspension lasts from June 25 to the end of this year.

Earlier, a weeks-long trial in Ho Chi Minh City from early March to late April involving Vietnamese property tycoon Truong My Lan, founder and chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, made the headlines, as this is one of the biggest corruption cases in history.

The municipal People’s Court handed down the death penalty on Lan for leading a scam that caused damages of US$27 billion – a figure equivalent to six percent of Vietnam's 2023 GDP – to SCB.

According to the court, Lan used other people’s names to acquire 91.5 percent of the shares in SCB and direct senior leaders of the bank and Van Thinh Phat to withdraw over VND1,066 trillion ($43.8 billion) from the lender between 2012 and 2022.

The public raised their concerns over the role of accounting firms in the scandal.

Deloitte Vietnam, along with two other major global accounting firms, has audited financial reports of SCB for many years.

Deloitte audited SCB's financial statements from 2017 to mid-2019 and confirmed the accuracy and consistency of the lender's consolidated financial reports.

According to its Q2/2022 consolidated financial report, which was released shortly before the lender was put under the supervision of the State Bank of Vietnam, the bank’s total assets reached over VND761 trillion ($29.6 billion) as of June 2022, resulting in SCB ranking fifth among the top five lenders in Vietnam at the time, after BIDV, Agribank, VietinBank, and Vietcombank.

The trial panel in charge of the SCB case demanded that the Ministry of Public Security and the Supreme People's Procuracy launch an investigation into the roles and responsibilities of the accounting firms and auditors that audited SCB's financial reports and tackle violators, if any.

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