The American “Global Gold” gold extraction company currently in Armenia has appealed to the International Center for Investment Dispute Settlement adjunct to the World Bank, accusing the Armenian government of creating obstacles for the investments, as well as not providing the licensing.
Readers may remember the dispute between “Global Gold” and Vardan Ayvazyan from last year. Let us recall that the Minister of Environmental Protection of Armenia was pressing charges on “Global Gold” for not making all the investments and falling behind schedule, especially in the Marjan gold mine. The company, in its turn, was accusing the ministry of not accepting the investments and standing in the way of the company. V. Ayvazyan has even threatened the company by depriving them of the right to use the gold mine. In its turn, the company dispersed information whereby one of the top-ranking officials of Armenia had demanded a 3 million dollar bribe from the company in order to provide them licensing. After a while, there was a publication in the press informing that that official was the Environmental Protection Minister of Armenia. This case rested for a while and many people thought that it ended for good. Later the debate heated up again when word got around that the Ministry of Environmental Protection of Armenia was planning to deprive “Global Gold” of licensing with the purpose of granting the mines to another company.
During the court hearing at the International Center for Investment Dispute Settlement, “Global Gold’s” attorney Ken Fleer representing the King & Spalding bar association told “Radio Liberty” that “Global Gold” will try to prove in the arbitration court that the Armenian government stopped the work of the company after the Minister of Environmental Protection of Armenia demanded a 3 million dollar bribe and was rejected. “The American “Global Gold” company will demand financial compensation from the Government of Armenia,” said Ken Fleer, adding that the amount of compensation will be decided in court by experts. Minister of Environmental Protection Vardan Ayvazyan once again denied the accusation during an interview with “168 Hours”.
“I feel awful that that 3 million dollar issue has come into the light again. Fraud and slander won’t go too far. They never tried to publicly announce that the official demanded money from them so I could get ready to sue somebody. As far as I know, the main issue in court was the 17-year licensing which doesn’t even exist in Armenia. We give them a work permit, they tell us to give them the mining right. That is the same as giving someone bread and then hearing him say that he wants all the bread of Armenia. They have never tried to protect their interests in a country where they are residing.”
Why didn’t “Global Gold” file a complaint about the decisions of the Armenian government in the court instances? Ken Fleer responded by saying that the contract which the Government of Armenia had violated is subject only to the International Center for Investment Dispute Settlement and not the governmental bodies of Armenia.
There is an opinion that Armenia’s reputation will go down by talking about this dispute in the international arena and accusing the Government of Armenia of demanding bribe and creating obstacles for investments. But Mr. Ayvazyan does not worry over this.
“Do you know what? I have absolutely no worries over hurting the image of Armenia. Let’s try to keep our image clean in other issues-the interests of Armenia are violated and not the interests of the “Global Gold” private organization. I appreciate that they are consistent. But this dispute is like the dispute for the Ararat gold factory when they complained that they weren’t getting profits. When I tell them to go and do something else if they don’t get profit, they protest against me”.