Ha Van Tham, former chairman of the Ocean Bank's Board of Directors.

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — The State Bank of Viet Nam (SBV) has suspended Chairman of the Ocean Commercial Joint Stock Bank's Board of Directors Ha Van Tham for serious violations of Viet Nam's laws.

In a report released on its website on October 24, SBV said that the violations were discovered during its inspection of the legal status and credit quality of credit institutions, which is part of the project on restructuring credit institutions, as approved by the Politburo and the Government.

The case will not affect Ocean Bank's operations, said SBV.

A day ago, members of the Ocean Bank's Board of Directors agreed to dismiss Tham from his position as the board's chairman.

Nguyen Minh Thu is newly-elected chairman of the bank's Board of Directors.

Nguyen Minh Thu, the bank's general director and member of the Board of Directors, was elected to replace Tham. She will no longer be the bank's general director.

Deputy General Director Nguyen Mai Huong became the managing deputy general director of the bank.

The SBV has been closely coordinating with relevant agencies to investigate violations at the Ocean Bank.

Tham, 42, founded the Ocean Group and is currently the ninth richest man in the Vietnamese stock market.

According to the Ocean Bank's website, Tham has a doctorate in business administration from Paramount University of Technology in the United States.

He was Deputy Chairman of the Hai Hung Commercial Joint Stock Bank's Management Board in 2003 and 2004, and then became its chairman.

The bank is now known as the Dai Duong Commercial Joint Stock Bank.

From 2007, Tham also held the position of Chairman at the Ocean Hospitality and the Dai Duong Communication Joint Stock Company.

He was a member of the Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company's (Vinamilk) Management Board, but left the post in 2013.

The Ocean Group recently sold its all capital at Ocean Retail JSC to its partners, and 70 per cent of it has been transferred to VinGroup.— VNS