Law and judiciary

Cambodia’s National Assembly on Tuesday adopted a draft law on fire prevention with jail term punishment for arsonists, neglected firefighters, and false information providers on fires. Ninety-four out of ninety-seven lawmakers, who were present at the session, passed the law, saying it would help maintain security, ...

A 14-year-old boy severely beaten by employees of a well-connected rubber plantation company in Ratanakkiri province on Saturday was sent to Vietnam for treatment for a life-threatening blood clot in his brain on Monday, according to his father, while a soldier detained in connection to ...

British sugar firm Tate & Lyle has denied knowing of the alleged abuses at two Cambodian plantations accused of illegally driving hundreds of families off their farms and says that the families have no right to ask the company for compensation, according to the firm’s ...

Three companies accused of illegal logging in Ratanakkiri province are in possession of a combined 30,000 hectares of economic land concessions (ELCs) that are likely illegal because they are owned by the same parent firm. Hoang Anh Andong Meas, Hoang Anh Lumphat and Hoang Anh Ouyadav ...

An online trading firm based in the tax haven of Cyprus is planning to open a subsidiary in Cambodia, an account manager at IronFX’s headquarters in Cyprus said yesterday. “We are on the planning stage in Cambodia. We are now studying law and regulations in the ...

The Court of Appeal yesterday heard the case of a land dispute between a 70-year old woman from Kompong Chhang province and a company owned by the wife of the Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy over a 3,000 square meter parcel of land. In May ...

The government on Friday released a draft of a new public policy guide on the county’s contentious land sector, a move that was welcomed by NGOs, who also called for the government to hold further consultations on the draft. Local rights groups have singled out ...

Local authorities and Ratanakkiri provincial forestry officials yesterday visited an area in O’Yadav district where community leaders say a Vietnamese company known as “Company 72” has razed an estimated 1,000 hectares of protected forest since 2011. “The villagers complained to the authorities many times, but ...

The government is drafting a rubber law to regulate the sector in response to the rapid growth of rubber plantations across the country, an official said. Ly Phalla, director general of the General Directorate of Rubber at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said officials ...

A commune official in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district has filed a lawsuit accusing a human rights worker of incitement and disinformation after villagers the NGO staffer spoke to traveled to Phnom Penh to protest over a land dispute involving a well-known businessman Try Pheap. Pursat ...

Farmers in Kompong Chhnang province locked in a land dispute with a local businesswoman are waiting for the government to make a decision on who owns the property after student volunteers measured the area earlier this month as part of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s nationwide ...

Authorities in Ratanakkiri province arrested and charged two men with illegal logging after discovering about 4,000 pieces of luxury wood on an economic land concession held by a Vietnamese rubber company, officials said. [Deputy Provincial Forestry Administration Chief Phan Phoeun] said that although the wood ...

The commerce affairs office in northeastern Surin has reported robust trade along the Thai-Cambodian border despite unresolved Phra Viharn [Preah Vihear] temple dispute. Mr. Sitthiporn Bangkeaw from the Office of Commerce Affairs Surin revealed that even though the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s public hearings in ...

Hundreds of Cambodian families are suing the British sugar firm Tate & Lyle in one of the U.K’s highest courts over a pair of plantations in Koh Kong province they accuse of violently forcing them off their land and out of their homes. The British law ...

In Washington today, attendees of the World Bank’s Annual Conference on Land and Poverty will hear a flattering account of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ambitious project to furnish nearly half a million Cambodian families with new private land titles just in time for July’s national ...

Huawei Technologies (Cambodia) Co agreed yesterday to withdraw its injunction against Mfone in order to pave the way for a court-appointed administrator to sell the bankrupt company’s assets and compensate its many creditors. Along with other creditors, Huawei representatives expressed concerns that the assets would ...

The president of the Bar Association of Cambodia has hit back at the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), which called for assurances that the Bar Association’s newly launched Code of Ethics, which was unveiled on Friday, would allow Cambodian lawyers to freely express themselves without ...

Philippe Laurent became secretary-general of Cambodia Airports in May 2008. He was one of six senior executives in charge of the country’s international airports in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and the little-used facility in Sihanoukville. Mr. Laurent is now carrying out a one-man campaign against ...

The British former Chairman of a troubled biofuel firm, who is in Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prision on forgery charges, has claimed he is the victim in the case for which he is awaiting trial. Gregg Fryett was arrested in Phnom Penh on March 23rd and ...

The Council of Ministers on Friday approved a draft law amending three articles in the law on anti-money laundering and the financing of terrorism in order to make Cambodia more investment-friendly. Last month, the National Bank of Cambodia’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), law enforcement officials ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has issued letters to 11 ethnic Tampuon villagers from the province’s Lumphat district, instructing them to prepare for a hearing over accusations of using violence on the property of rubber company DM Group. DM Group first began setting up rubber plantations in ...

The National Assembly’s Commission on Economy on Wednesday rejected the opposition- proposed draft law on minimum wages for garment and state workers. The opposition group proposed the National Assembly to make a law to limit a monthly minimum wage of 150 U.S. dollars for garment ...

The Pursat Provincial court on Friday charged Krakor district’s judicial police bureau chief for taking bribes in order to allow illegal fishing in the Tonle Sap Lake, officials said yesterday. [Hong Bunthoeun] stands accused of accepting bribes to allow illicit fishing in parts of the Tonle ...

A court official said yesterday that the complaint that led to the imprisonment of a British man and two Cambodian staff at a troubled biofuel firm was filed last year by a senior Forestry Administration official. Gregg Fryett, 45, was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Unit ...