Scandal at Apax Leaders before Shark Thuy was prosecuted

The Ministry of Public Security has just prosecuted and temporarily detained Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Thuy (Shark Thuy, born in 1982, in Hanoi), founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors - General Director of Egroup Corporation. Previously, the English system he founded, Apax Leaders, was involved in many scandals that made parents, teachers and employees angry.

The Apax Leaders scandal began in September 2022, when many parents in Dak Lak filed a complaint that the Buon Ma Thuot center suddenly closed and did not refund tuition fees. Many parents paid tens of millions of dong in tuition fees for the entire school year, but their children only studied for 1 month before the center closed.

Scandal at Apax Leaders before Shark Thuy was prosecuted - 1

After waiting for a response from the center for more than a month but in vain, parents went to Egroup's headquarters to ask the management to handle the matter and give parents an official answer.

While the incident in Dak Lak has not been resolved, many parents in Dong Nai whose children are studying at Apax Leaders Bien Hoa Center have also filed complaints, demanding a refund of tuition fees on the grounds that the center did not fulfill its commitment. Some parents even paid hundreds of millions of VND for their children, but the teachers were indifferent during the lessons.

At the same time, a series of Apax Leaders English centers across the country such as Apax Leaders Ho Chi Minh City, Apax Leaders Hanoi, Apax Leaders Ha Tinh, Apax Leaders Khanh Hoa, Apax Leaders Hai Phong also closed. Shark Thuy's company fell into crisis when many parents across the country demanded to withdraw tuition fees.

In February 2023, the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City stepped in to count the losses related to Apax English Joint Stock Company. Accordingly, in Ho Chi Minh City alone, there are about 11,295 students registered to study, of which 839 are studying directly, more than 6,000 students have reserved their results and more than 4,300 students have requested to withdraw their fees.

The tuition fee that must be refunded to parents is more than 108 billion VND. Of which, Apax paid more than 14 billion VND, still owing more than 93 billion VND.

In addition, the unit still owes teachers and staff salaries until February 2023 of more than 11 billion VND and rent of 9 billion VND.

While parents were demanding tuition refunds, Shark Thuy's English system was also accused of owing teachers and staff salaries, and even operating costs and rent.

From September 2022 to February 2023, more than 200 Englishnow employees were owed salaries and insurance for many months, the most owed was a year's salary. At the peak, many teachers and employees of Apax Leaders in Dong Nai and Ho Chi Minh City went on strike, no one came to work.

Foreign teachers also stopped teaching en masse because the centers had not paid their salaries for many months. That was also the reason why a series of facilities in Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai and many other facilities had to stop students from studying because there were no more teachers, making the situation even more chaotic.

Scandal at Apax Leaders before Shark Thuy was prosecuted - 2

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Thuy once said that the cause of the above crisis was due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic. Each month, the group lost about more than 100 billion and in 6 months, the loss amounted to nearly 1,000 billion VND.

Apax Leaders and Englishnow have held dialogues many times to find a suitable solution. Mr. Thuy has proposed many solutions such as asking for an extension of the refund period, wishing to “borrow” the remaining tuition fee at the bank interest rate for 6 months or a year, and restructuring the company.

However, after several refunds to a small group of parents, this unit repeatedly missed deadlines, then unilaterally proposed many new alternative schedules, including promising to pay "drop by drop" in 20 installments.

At the beginning of 2024, this center suddenly announced that it would stop teaching and asked for an extension of the refund period.

Regarding the reason for the suspension of operations and the non-refund, Apax stated that in the process of resuming operations, the center encountered difficulties because it was "exhausted after COVID-19 and faced an economic recession". During this time, the business also had many financial obligations that had to be paid.

In addition, Shark Thuy's center also blamed the parents, saying that the parents gathering and causing disorder in front of the center's door shook the trust of investors and employees, causing the company to not have enough resources to refund fees.

This is also the last information Shark Thuy gave before being prosecuted and temporarily detained by the police to investigate the crime of fraud and property appropriation on March 26.

Ha Cuong

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