PROBLEMS ON THE STATUS OF STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISE IN THAI LAW CASE KRUNGTHAI BANK PUBLIC COMPANY LIMITED

Abstract

The status of Thai agency under Thai law is very significant to understand the scope of the law and how its enforced . Especially, in the case of Krung Thai Bank Public Company Ltd., (KTB) has approved by the Council of the state through its “Legal Opinion” that the KTB was firmly a State-Owned Enterprise by the definition of “State-Owned Enterprise” of the Act of Budget Procedure B.E. 2502. The council of the state emphasized that the status of the major shareholder of KTB is the key to consider the SOEs status of KTB, The Financial Institutions Development Funds, FIDF, hold more than 50 percent of all shares. Meanwhile, The Act of Bank of Thailand was changed the status into the central bank of Thailand and had no longer “SOEs” status. Therefore, KTB became the non-SOEs bank under The Act of budget procedure B.E. 2502 and The Act of budget procedure B.E. 2561. On the contrary, KTB still be a SOEs under the PPP Act because of the meaning of “SOEs” under this act is broadly different from the Act of Budget procedure. The paradox of the status of KTB as SOEs is the significant evidence of Thai law that need to be focused and state out the best solution to setup the new Act to solve this problem.