Thursday,
Armenian Food Exporter ‘Not Cleared Of Tax Evasion’
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia -- A heavy truck parked at the Spayka company's premises in Yerevan,
June 21, 2013.
The State Revenue Committee (SRC) is continuing a tax evasion investigation
into Armenia’s largest food exporting company despite releasing its chief
executive from prison about three months ago, the SRC chief, Davit Ananian,
said on Thursday
Ananian stressed at the same time that his agency comprising the Armenian tax
and customs services does not want to disrupt the Spayka company’s operations
given their significance for the domestic agricultural sector.
Spayka’s official owner and executive director, Davit Ghazarian, was arrested
in early April after the SRC accused the company of evading over 7 billion
drams ($14.5 million) in taxes in 2015 and 2016.
The accusations stem from large quantities of foodstuffs which were imported to
Armenia by another company, Greenproduct. The SRC says that Greenproduct is
controlled by Spayka and that the latter rigged its customs documents to pay
fewer taxes from those imports.
Ghazarian strongly denied the charges and any ownership links to Greenproduct.
The businessman was set free in early May after paying the government 1 billion
drams.
Armenia -- Davit Ananian, head of the State Revenue Committee, speaks to
journalists in Yerevan, .
Ananian said that the SRC not only stands by its tax fraud claims but also
believes that Spayka owes the state more back taxes than were alleged by it in
April. He declined to specify the revised sum.
“We are now working to obtain additional facts and make [further]
calculations,” the SRC chief told reporters. “At this stage we have left the
company and the company’s executive a bit alone so that they deal with the
company’s normal work.”
“But this doesn’t mean that we have backed away,” he said. “On the contrary,
the initially stated figure of 7-8 billion drams has increased.”
Spayka is Armenia’s leading producer and exporter of agricultural products
grown at its own greenhouses or purchased from farmers in about 80 communities
across the country. The company employing about 2,000 people also owns about
300 heavy trucks transporting those fruits and vegetables abroad and Russia in
particular.
Armenia - Businessman Davit Ghazarian (C) shows Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
around a newly built dairy factory of his Spayka company, Yerevan, March 26,
2019.
In a series of statements released in April, Spayka warned that it may not be
able to buy large quantities of agricultural produce from Armenian farmers this
year. It said that because of Ghazarian’s arrest its mainly foreign creditors
are withholding further funding for the company.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian dismissed those warnings on April 9. He said he
is confident that the food giant will carry on with the wholesale purchases.
Ghazarian was arrested on April 8 two weeks after inaugurating a
state-of-the-art cheese factory in Yerevan at a ceremony attended by Pashinian.
Spayka planned to build another cheese plant and expand its greenhouses under a
$100 million project that was due to be mostly financed by the Kazakhstan-based
Eurasian Development Bank (EDB).
Andrey Belyaninov, the EDB chairman, said on April 25 that the disbursement of
its $67 million loan to Spayka has been put on hold due to Ghazarian’s arrest.
“We can’t take such a risk if we are talking about [Spayka’s] potential
bankruptcy,” Belyaninov was reported to say.
European Court Orders Massive Compensation To Armenian Plaintiff
• Artak Khulian
France -- The building of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg,
November 15, 2018.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday ordered Armenia to pay as
much as 1.6 million euros ($1.8 million) in compensation to an Armenian man
whose house and land had been expropriated during a controversial redevelopment
of downtown Yerevan.
The ECHR set the amount of “just satisfaction” for Yuri Vartanian, an
83-year-old Yerevan resident, nearly three years after ruling that Armenian
authorities violated his rights to property ownership and a fair hearing in
court.
Vartanian and his family used to own a house and a plot of land in an old
district in the city center which was slated for demolition in the early 2000s
as part of redevelopment projects initiated by then President Robert Kocharian.
A real estate agency authorized by the state estimated the market value of the
1,400 square-meter property at more than $700,000 in May 2005.
A few months later, Yerevan’s municipal administration and, Vizkon, a private
developer cooperating with it, challenged Vartanian’s ownership rights in
court, saying that they had never been recognized by any judicial act. The
claim was accepted by a district court but rejected by Armenia’s Court of
Appeals.
According to ECHR documents, the municipality and Vizkon expressed readiness to
settle the case when it reached the higher Court of Cassation in 2006. They
offered to give Vartanian USD $390,000 in cash as well as a 160- square-meter
apartment and 40 square-meter office premises in the city center.
Armenia -- An old house is demolished in downtown Yerevan.
Vartanian rejected the proposed settlement, drawing a stern rebuke from Arman
Mkrtumian, the then chairman of the Court of Cassation who presided over
hearings on the case. A court panel consisting of Mkrtumian and two other
judges subsequently ruled against Vartanian. The latter appealed to the ECHR in
2007.
The Strasbourg-based court ruled in October 2016 that Armenian courts and other
entities violated articles of the European Convention on Human Rights
guaranteeing the right to a fair hearing and protection of property.
“I consider the ruling fair because we have finally won morally,” Vartanian’s
wife, Shushanik Nanushian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
However, Nanushian was not satisfied with the size of the financial
compensation set by the ECHR, claiming that it constitutes only a fraction of
the real market value of the property lost by her family.
The sum due to be paid to Vartanian exceeds the total amount of damages awarded
by the ECHR since 2007 to all other Armenian plaintiffs combined. The latter
include nine other Yerevan residents who had lost their properties in similar
circumstances. According to Armenia’s representative to the Strasbourg court,
Yeghishe Kirakosian, ECHR verdicts have obligated Yerevan to pay them a total
of 324,581 euros in damages.
Armenian Tourists Stranded In Egypt
• Susan Badalian
Egypt -- Tourists depart from a hotel in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada,
January 9, 2016.
About 100 Armenian tourists were left stranded in an Egyptian Red Sea sort on
Thursday due to the cancellation of charter flights to and from Egypt organized
by a Yerevan-based travel agency.
They were due to return to Armenia on Wednesday after ending their 10-day
holiday in the Hurghada resort.
“We are in the hotel lobby right now, waiting to see if there will be a
flight,” one of the holidaymakers, Alla Minasian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian
service by phone. “I have spoken to our ambassador here for a couple of times.
He said they are trying to do something.”
“People have spent the night in the lobby and had problems with food because
the hotel doesn’t provide them with food anymore,” said Minasian. “Buying new
air tickets to reach Yerevan through other routes costs a lot of money.”
According to the Armenian Embassy in Egypt, the Hurghada-Yerevan flight was
cancelled because the A & R Tour agency that sold tour packages to the stranded
tourists failed to pay a Greek airline hired by it. An embassy official said
the airline is ready to fly them back to Armenia as soon as the Armenian firm
honors its financial commitments.
Planned flights between Yerevan and another popular Egyptian resort, Sharm
el-Sheikh, arranged by A & R Tour were unexpectedly cancelled this week. Dozens
of angry ticket holders besieged the agency’s empty office in the Armenian
capital to demand an explanation or financial compensation.
“Our flight was delayed again today,” said Gurgen Harutiunian, a resident of
the southeastern Armenian town of Kajaran. “There are 12 of us travelling from
Kajaran. You can imagine how much we have to spend on food and accommodation
[in Yerevan] because of them.”
Liana Hovannisian, who had also purchased a 10-day tour package from A & R
Tour, learned about the cancellation of her flight when she arrived at
Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport on Thursday morning. She said she called the agency
and was told to come to its office.
“We came to the office at noon and were told that [the agency director] will be
here in an hour,” said Hovannisian. “It’s now 1 p.m. and she has still not
shown up.”
Other employees of the travel firm were also nowhere to be seen, making it
impossible for the A & R Tour customers to know whether they will go on holiday
after all.
Press Review
“Haykakan Zhamanak” says that last week’s protests in Ijevan against a
government ban on illegal logging were an act of “sabotage” that failed because
public opinion favored the government and because the authorities ruled out any
concessions to violent protesters. “The main objective of the organizers [of
the protests] was to test the authorities’ weak spots in hopes that they will
bow to several hundred protesters,” writes the pro-government paper. “But the
authorities did not budge and it made no sense to continue the show.”
Lragir.am reports that Nagorno-Karabakh’s former top military commander, Samvel
Babayan, claims to have collected more than 25,000 signatures in support of
constitutional changes that would allow him to run in next year’s Karabakh
presidential election. The publication notes that virtually all major Karabakh
parties have spoken out against such changes, putting themselves at odds with
Babayan. It fears that Babayan’s political ambitions could destabilize the
situation in Karabakh. “After the revolution in Armenia, Artsakh has a chance
to form a healthy government that would protect the interests of Artsakh’s
population, rather than the military and criminal oligarchy linked to Armenia’s
former government,” it says.
“Zhoghovurd” looks at the Armenian government’s anti-corruption efforts. The
paper says that government bodies tasked with planning and coordinating those
efforts have undergone few structural changes since last year’s regime change.
But, it says, the key difference is that their members do not include
“officials mired in corruption.” On top of that, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
is continuing his “relentless” fight against corruption, it says. “The
[anti-corruption] body headed by him cannot make any concessions to any corrupt
practice,” concludes the paper.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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