EcoLur
In a judgement dated September 5, 2012, the U.S. Southern District Court of New York ordered the U.S. Marshall of the same district to seize ,537,978 from Vardan Ayvazyan to be paid to Global Gold Mining LLC. According to the Hetq newspaper http://hetq.am/arm/articles/18561/nyu-yorqi-dashnayin-datarany-375-mln-dolari-vtchir-e-kayacrel-vardan-ayvazyani-dem.html), “Vardan Ayvazyan, a former RA Minister of the Environment, had been sued by Global Gold for exerting undue pressure on one of its subsidiaries that was the license holder for the Hankavan mine in Armenia…”.
Vardan Ayvazyan responded to this publication. In the course of the press conference on 17 September he stated that Global Gold Mining Company was bereaved of the license because of not implementing works in set term. Vardan Ayvazyan made comments on his relations with Global Gold Mining and reminded that a campaign was organized against him in 2006-2007. The Ex Prime Minister was also surprised why this case was not tried in Armenian courts.
For our part, EcoLur will remind that different aspects of interrelations between Ex Minister with the company was tried many times in courts of Armenia starting from 2006. Apparently, the peculiarities of our court processed didn’t meet the company’s expectations and they applied to different instances, including diplomatic ones. Thus, the dispatch of American diplomat Anthony Godfrey displayed on Wikileaks says that the diplomat support the Global Gold Company’s decision to for arbitration International Arbitration Court. At international levels the company filed for International Chamber of Commerce in 2006 and U.S. Southern District Court of New York in 2008. According to the publication in the Hetq, “… ICC’s International Arbitration Court decided that Ayvazyan must be recognized as a litigant as per the 2008 District Court’s verdict…”
The Republican Party of Armenia, a member of which is MP Vardan Ayvazyan, hasn’t yet issued its political assessment to this incident.
September 18, 2012 at 15:50