hongkongfooey is right, this pair decided they were smarter than the board and went against their wishes and decided they knew all about fuel hedging. The end result was a loss of an significant amount of money not to be sneezed at especially when it is mainly government money as the airline is still 70% owned by them. Of concern for the investigators is the lack of traceability of where this money has gone, you don't mess with government money in this country.
It is not just the fuel hedging that is being investigated but apparently mis management of the airline, tax evasion and safety issues.
The above appears to be typical of the management team from JQ/QF in Vietnam, being often quoted 'this is not how we do it at Jetstar/Qantas' or when dealing with the local authority the CAAV its 'this is not the way CASA would do it'.
At the end of the day it is not that hard to work or do business in Vietnam, you just have to understand the lay of the land and the fact it is a different place to Australia which i think some of these people never came to grips with.
The media in Australia has been slow to pick up this story and JQ/QF has been keeping it quite. Locally they have been running it for a long time especially since the termination late last year of two long serving foreign engineers (one Kiwi and one Ozzie) who were sacked because as they say for raising safety matters within the airline. An investigation was carried out by the CAAV and it was found that the claims of unsafe operations were true plus a lot more as well as finding the terminations were illegal. Prior to this the JQ/QF management (including the two currently held) were stating none of the claims made were true and that as they had the backing of the safest airline in the world (Qantas) everything was fine. After the investigation they were very quite but the results had a big impact on the airline with managers found to have obstructed the investigation, some suspended, terminated or removed from their positions, LAE licenses taken and the maintenance activities of the airline restricted until they got their act together including the revoking of the ability to carry out A checks on the aircraft which had to be flown overseas to Singapore.
The operation of the airline has become a real mess with at times only two aircraft out of the fleet of six flying, the others AOG awaiting repair or spare parts, this having created many angry passengers left stranded at airports around Vietnam. Though some improvements to the operation have occurred it appears that the Jetstar cutting costs has gone to far by the implanted JQ/QF managers, perhaps focusing on their bonuses at the end of their two year contract rather than the future of the airline.
In the local media questions are being asked about the high salaries of these foreign managers- $20K USD a month, plus luxury accommodation and bonus when over the last two years significant losses have been made at the airline.
When Qantas first invested into the airline hopes were high that big things would happen but this never got off the ground, granted the tough fight with Vietnam Airlines, economic crisis and high fuel prices have not helped, the management control of the airline by the JQ/QF implants has been seen to be very poor and to blame for the current state of the operation. Some are speculating that Qantas are not interested in making money here rather promote their brand for Jetstar Asia and Jetstar Australia.
At the end of the day as the old saying goes when there is smoke there is fire, these two have broken (or bent) the rules and will be held to account for this. To compare this with Rio Tinto Executive Stern Hu detained in China as some media outlets in Australia have implied is wrong, Vietnam is a lot smarter than this.
Since the introduction of economic reforms or Doi Moi in 1986 the country has held its arms open to foreign investment and is not about to put this at risk by playing political games. The government here understands the international implications on the country of holding two foreign nationals as part of its investigation and i sure there will be transparency on this issue.