Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing rather strict scrutiny of the legality of certain types of foreign businesses operating here in Thailand. I'm talking about this in the foreground of a recent case involving a foreign man down in Phuket that has gone largely viral here in Thailand to become almost a cause célèbre if you will amongst certain Thais regarding the issue of land encroachment on to public land as well as foreigners for lack of a better term "behaving badly" in Thailand. 

So I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Immigration to review Swiss man's visa after beach 'assault'. Now as we have discussed in other videos, the allegations in the underlying case here are not something I really want to get into because the accusations have yet to be fully adjudicated and we have yet to see a conviction in this case, and based on the legal system here in Thailand one is innocent until proven guilty and until one has gone through due process and been adjudicated, findings of fact and conclusions of law have been made and an adjudication has been rendered regarding a decision in the case, basically what happened here essentially, it is inappropriate to discuss this as if we know what happened. So I am going to talk about this largely, talking about this from the standpoint of allegations rather than saying "hey this is proven". It's not proven. That said, presuming the charges are accurate, I think there is enough factual basis to say if there is a conviction in this case then it is safe to say that the person in question was engaged in some pretty bad behaviour but again we don't know if this person in fact did this and that is the point of having an adjudication so we'll leave that to the Court System to make that determination. 

That said, we are talking about this in the context of foreigners doing business here in Thailand and you really have to understand, you need to keep your business activities in line with relevant Thai Law for the reasons I will get into here in a moment. The article is from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Immigration to review Swiss man's Visa after beach 'assault'. Quoting directly: "Citing information from Immigration, Mr Adul said" .. (I am going to redact this person's name and nickname and everything so I will just say).. "said this foreigner has a Visa that is set to expire on March 13th. The Swiss man operates a number of businesses in Thailand and has a registered Foundation under his name. Quote: "Immigration will review this person's Visa status and decide whether or not to extend the Visa when it expires he said, adding authorities are also looking at the legality of his businesses and foundation in the country." 

Now I discussed the issue of foundation in another video made contemporaneously with this one. We are talking specifically about business undertakings here in Thailand. Bear in mind, there is something called the Foreign Business Act here in Thailand which stipulates that foreign nationals generally speaking can only own a minority share in most types of businesses doing business here in Thailand. Now folks will talk about the issue of so-called nominee shareholders as we have discussed in many other videos; bear in mind nominee shareholders are illegal in Thailand and we have often seen when strict scrutiny is applied to certain types of business entities, there are issues that arise in the form of questioning whether or not shareholders in a given business enterprise are in fact active shareholders or if they are in fact nominees. And where it is determined that a foreign national is utilizing nominees, there may not only be criminal penalties associated therewith, but there may also be a situation where even the Company could be dissolved and certain assets could be seized or generally speaking just seizures of assets pending an adjudication as well, that's also a possible issue. So quoting further: "The incident has led to calls for a thorough investigation into his property and businesses." 

So that is a key element that's going on here in the background with regard to, as we discussed in other videos there's not only the immigration aspect which can be a major problem for foreigners here in Thailand who find themselves at odds with the law, but then on top of that, those who are doing business here in Thailand in an inappropriate manner may find themselves having problems in terms of maintaining their business entity or they may see their assets seized as a result of heightened scrutiny.