The SCB prosecution
Vietnamese courts found that Trương Mỹ Lan exercised unlawful control over Saigon Commercial Bank through networks of nominees and entities and used that control in a large scheme involving fraudulent lending and embezzlement. In April 2024 she was convicted in the first phase of the case. The judgment included a death sentence for embezzlement alongside other penalties.
Lan appealed. In December 2024, the appellate court rejected the challenge to the phase-one death sentence. That appellate outcome is important historically, but it is no longer accurate to describe execution as her current legal endpoint because Vietnam subsequently changed the law governing the offense.
Second phase: bonds, laundering and cross-border transfers
A second prosecution addressed fraudulent appropriation connected to bond sales, money laundering and illegal cross-border monetary transfers. At first instance in October 2024, Lan received a life sentence for fraudulent appropriation, 12 years for money laundering and eight years for illegal cross-border transfers.
On April 21, 2025, the High-level People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City reduced the fraud component from life imprisonment to 20 years while maintaining the other sentences. State media reported the resulting aggregate sentence for this second phase as 30 years.
The 2025 death-penalty reform
On June 25, 2025, Vietnam's National Assembly approved amendments abolishing the death penalty for eight offenses, including embezzlement and bribery, effective July 1. The transitional rule applies to people already sentenced to death for those offenses but not yet executed: the capital punishment is to be converted to life imprisonment under the amended framework.
Contemporary reporting specifically identified Lan as a person affected by the reform. This means the earlier phase-one death sentence remains part of the procedural history but should not be presented as an executable current punishment after the law change.
Restitution and the victims of the bond case
The human impact did not end with the convictions. Civil judgment enforcement has continued to process assets and distribute recovered funds to bondholders. Officially sourced reporting in May 2026 stated that more than 42,000 bondholders had received payments through nine installments, totaling about VND 12 trillion, under judgments requiring compensation to 43,108 people connected to six bond codes.
By July 31, 2026, Vietnamese reporting said a tenth payment round had distributed more than VND 318 billion to more than 42,600 bondholders. Restitution is therefore an active enforcement process even though Lan's criminal convictions have been adjudicated.
Timeline
April 11, 2024: Lan is convicted in the first phase of the SCB case and receives a death sentence for embezzlement.
October 17, 2024: A second-phase first-instance judgment imposes sentences for fraudulent appropriation, money laundering and illegal cross-border transfers.
December 3, 2024: The phase-one death sentence is upheld on appeal.
April 21, 2025: The second-phase appellate court reduces the fraud sentence to 20 years and maintains the other prison terms, producing a 30-year aggregate for that phase.
June 25 / July 1, 2025: Vietnam abolishes capital punishment for embezzlement and several other offenses, with a transition rule converting affected unexecuted death sentences to life imprisonment.
2025–2026: Civil enforcement agencies continue liquidating assets and paying bondholders in multiple rounds.
Current status
The case is classified as Solved / Adjudicated for archive purposes because the principal criminal convictions have completed the appellate stages described above. The status does not mean every financial consequence has ended: restitution, asset handling and civil judgment enforcement remain active. The page also distinguishes the superseded capital-punishment framework from the law in force after July 1, 2025.