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23,000 blacklisted in Thailand's major crackdown
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Thailand's Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha answer question from reporters at Government house in Bangkok, Thailand, June 6. (AP/Sakchai Lalit)
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early 23,000 companies were blacklisted by the Business Development Department (BDD) in the first half of the year for a range of "default behaviours", from intentionally registering a name similar to that of a well-known firm, to providing an unclear location and missing the deadline for submitting their accounts.
Pongpun Gearaviriyapun, director-general of the department, said Tuesday the agency had blacklisted 22,992 firms since they had engaged in one or more of these and other unacceptable behaviours.
And the department was determined to crack down on such businesses for the sake of consumers and companies that played by the rules, she added.
To ascertain whether a registered company has been blacklisted, enterprises and customers can check with the department through its mobile application, DBD e-Service, she said.
The blacklisted firms account for around 3.6 percent of the roughly 640,000 active companies in the Kingdom.
Thirty-eight were found to have intentionally registered their company names close to those of established, well-known businesses, a behaviour that could lead to people being misled and cheated, Pongpun said.
However, the bulk of the blacklisted businesses were found to have provided unclear office addresses, missed the deadline for submitting their accounts, or overstated their initial investment capital, while some firms have been sued or had their business licences withdrawn, as in the case of alleged pyramid-scheme operator UFun Store, she added.
The department has also recently withdrawn the business licences of 15 companies that have breached the Foreign Business Act for having a nominee structure that allows foreigners to own a majority stake in a company in sectors protected for Thais.
Businesses protected under the Act are mainly service operations and tourism. Moreover, the BDD has also checked registered companies’ initial capital investment, focussing on those registering capital above 5 million baht ($142,437) as it is afraid that exaggerated amounts could enable such firms to fraudulently attract customers, the director-general explained.
