The Multi Wellness Center, owned by businessman and opposition Prosperous Armenia Party’s arrested chairman Gagik Tsarukyan, is appealing the decision of the Yerevan Municipality in court, by which the center was recently deprived of the right to build, and the area had passed to the community.
According to the DataLex judicial information system of Armenia, the representative of Multi Wellness is asking the court to invalidate the transaction made by the Yerevan mayor on June 8, by which the city hall unilaterally terminated the contract signed with Gagik Tsarukyan.
Tsarukyan’s lawyer is also demanding that the court invalidate the decision of the Cadastre Committee of Armenia, by which the right to build of Multi Wellness was terminated on July 14 and the property was fully registered as the property of the Yerevan community. The Cadastre Committee does not comment on their aforesaid decision.
The Yerevan Municipality terminated the lease agreement for Tsarukyan’s Multi Wellness weeks ago. And last weekend, Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinyan announced that it had reopened under a new name and would be under the control of the Armenian capital’s authorities.
Meanwhile, the aforesaid center had leased the land with the right to develop it until 2065 under a 2016 land lease agreement with the city authorities. But Avinyan took not only the land from Tsarukyan, but also the building built on it and the property inside.
The Yerevan Municipality did not elaborate on the grounds for this change and whether there are such provisions in the agreement. Azatutyun, the RFE/RL’s Armenian service, has sent a written request regarding both those grounds and the legality of the current managing of the complex’s income, as well as the provision of compensation to the businessman.
The date of the respective court hearing is not yet known.
As part of the illegal property confiscation proceedings, the Yerevan Ararat Brandy-Wine-Vodka Factory and the AraratCement plant, owned by the family of Gagik Tsarukyan, have been taken over by the state.
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