Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Amity Treaty. For those who are unaware the US-Thai Treaty of Amity provides national treatment under its provisions to Americans or American Companies doing business in Thailand. National treatment is not insignificant. It means that said operations will be considered in the same light as if they were Thai. So this means that notwithstanding the provisions of the Foreign Business Act which stipulates that foreigners can only own certain percentages of Companies, under the Amity Treaty they can be owned outright by an American. An American can own 100% of the outstanding shares. That is a substantial difference from most other nationalities doing business here in Thailand; it's a major benefit. 

Now the question is, can you fall out of that status? Yeah. A big way of doing it is having foreign involvement. By foreign I mean third country national involvement as either a shareholder or a director on such a Company. What are we talking about when we say third country national? Again this is going to be circumstantially dependent; different circumstances are going to result differently. The main thing to bear in mind is that if there is another foreign national operating as a shareholder that results in a situation where the Company would otherwise be in violation the Foreign Business Act, you can sort of fall out of Amity status. Basically, the American no longer becomes a majority shareholder, the foreign national becomes a majority shareholder. In a sense, it extinguishes the benefits under the Treaty in a practical manner, that is basically what it means. 

So the thing to keep to take away from this video, especially in the SME context, if you are an American and you have a third country national that you are dealing with or something and you are looking at Amity, you probably are going to want to contact a legal professional to figure out how best to structure that Company so that you can garner the benefits under the Treaty without jeopardizing them because of the presence of the third country national.