“Today, before the judges, I promise to submit my actions and those of my children and friends to the State Bank of Vietnam for the purpose of managing the SCB,” she told the People’s Court of Vietnam on Tuesday. Ho Chi Minh City.
The 68-year-old said foreign investors had stakes in these companies and so the court should grant her permission to trade with them.
Her daughter is selling a building in Hanoi worth about $1 billion to make up for losses she caused the bank, she said.
She also wanted to use the VND1 trillion ($40.5 million) she received from her business partner Nguyen Cao Tri, chairman of property developer Capella, to pay the compensation.
In a lengthy speech, she told the court her life story and how she came to be involved in SCB.
Although her family is originally from China, she was born and raised in HCMC, where her mother worked as a vendor at Ben Thanh Market for 14 years.
His family’s savings during these years allowed him to create the Van Thinh Phat hotel company in 1992, then gradually several subsidiaries.
The State Bank of Vietnam asked him to join an advisory board for the merger of two troubled banks with SCB.
Before the merger in 2012, it used some of its own assets to raise funds for the bank, including the five-star Windsor Hotel, which it used as collateral for a 15 trillion dong loan.
“At the time, I thought that with my abilities and connections, I could help SCB.”
She was prepared to lose these assets if the plan failed, but she was “confident it would succeed.”
She had earlier claimed in court that she was not the bank’s largest controlling shareholder. The five shareholders who owned 35% of SCB were friends and partners and she had not asked them to hold the shares on her behalf.
She had great influence at SCB only because she used her personal assets as collateral to obtain loans for the bank, but she had no influence on the board of directors.
She urged judges to “carefully assess” the losses she may have caused to the bank and the amount she would have made from it.
All the other defendants told the court that Lan was the mastermind behind the scam and that they had acted entirely on his orders.
Lan is on trial for corruption, violating banking regulations and embezzlement.
Between 2012 and 2022, SCB provided it with 2,500 loans worth more than VND1 quadrillion ($44 billion), or 93% of its entire loan portfolio.
She is accused of causing losses of 498,000 billion dong to the lender.
Eighty-five other people are on trial for embezzlement, corruption, abuse of power in the exercise of official functions, lack of accountability leading to serious consequences and violation of banking regulations.
The trial began on March 5 and will continue until the end of April.
