Ara Hakobyan, director of “Kecharis Hotel” Limited Liability Company, filed a lawsuit against the Cadastre Committee, demanding to repeal the state registration of 10.12.2021 for the real estate at 14 Aivazovsky Street and to oblige to register the plaintiff’s ownership right to the same address.

The case was assigned to Judge Yelena Arakelyan.

It should be noted that Iravaban.net has published an investigation about 70 auctions announced for the area at 14 Aivazovsky Street, the winners in which are related to Mihran Poghosyan.

Within the framework of the case, at the request of the plaintiff Ara Hakobyan, the court applied security of the claim, prohibiting the RA Cadastre Committee and the “ArnDane” LLC (currently the registered owner of the property at 14 Aivazovsky) to perform any action or transaction related to the property.

On 19 January, another session in the case was held, during which the third party “ArnDane” LLC submitted a motion to cancel the security of the claim. According to the Company, from the point of view of elimination of security of the claim, the security of the claim can be applied in the case of an obligation claim.

Lawyer Nerses Aghababyan

“ArnDane” Company believes that security of the claim could not be applied in the case, because the claim filed against the Cadastre Committee cannot be considered a claim of obligation. In this case, the claimant may request to accept the favorable administrative act, the acceptance of which was refused by the administrative body. There is no denial in the case file. The plaintiff did not submit a rejection decision,” the Company’s lawyer, Nerses Aghababyan said.

According to Aghababyan, only this is enough to eliminate the securing of the claim, but he additionally mentioned that if the claim is qualified as “commitment”, then in this case the composition of the participants in the case differs from the usual commitment claim, because the means of securing the claim limits not only the actions of the state body, but also the property right of the 3rd party involved in the case.

“The ownership of the property has been registered, the Company is considered its owner. In fact, the Company is prohibited from performing any action or transaction related to its property. As a result of the restriction, the Company suffers significant losses. Apart from the fact that AMD 375 million were paid for the property, of which AMD 103 million were allocated to the municipal budget, and AMD 272 million were paid to the account of the bankruptcy administrator, these sums were loan funds received from “Armeconombank”. Only during 2022, the interest payments paid to the bank amount to about AMD 44.4 million.”

Director of “ArnDane” Company Karen Melkumyan was also present at the meeting. He presented the losses of the Company suffered due to the applied claim security measure, according to their calculations,

“The money has been used, interest is still being paid for it, but the Company does not receive any profit in return,” Melkumyan said.

According to him, the immovable property located at 14 Aivazovsky Street, in terms of infrastructure, continues to remain a single property, from which different parts have been separated. The Company has started purchasing various parts of the subdivided unit’s property.

“Our Company is the number one producer of agricultural fodder and fertilizers, besides, it has a very important function: carries out preservation of food grain. I am telling all this so that it is clear to what extent the work of the Company is hindered. There are warehouses in the real estate area, which are important for our operations. For the 2nd year already, I continue to refuse the execution of additional transactions, to those requesting the property for rent. The Ministry of Economy needed space to store food grain, I could not provide space. An area of ​​about 9,000 square meters is merely being destroyed today, the Company is suffering big losses,” Melkumyan said, adding that the state is also suffering losses, as it is estimated that it does not pay 1 billion drams in taxes, because the Company is unable to operate in that area. According to the director, their processed products are stored outside under the sun, rain and snow.

Lawyer Varazdat Asatryan

Varazdat Asatryan, the representative of the plaintiff, stated that the presented motion is groundless for several reasons. He mentioned that the 3rd party has already submitted a motion to apply counter-security, to which the court provided a substantive assessment and rejected it. In addition, the satisfaction of the petition will make it difficult to execute the judicial act in favor of the plaintiff, the real estate will undergo substantive changes.

“In addition, our ambitions for that real estate did not drop from the air. My client made payments, acquired it, but the state body did not register it within the specified period for reasons incomprehensible to us,” the lawyer noted.

According to Asatryan, the content of the claim, its clarification, the existence or absence of evidence in the case cannot be examined within the framework of the motion to eliminate the securing of the claim, otherwise the order of the preliminary court hearing established by the RA Administrative Procedure Code will be violated.

“The representative of the 3rd person in the motion to cancel the security of the claim did not in any way substantiate the fact of the need eliminate the security of the claim. Instead, the position about the need to eliminate the security of the claim has been conditioned by the possibility of suffering some kind of damages. First of all, the possibility of the 3rd party suffering unjustified damages cannot be a basis for canceling the security measure of the applied claim, because its purpose is to ensure the execution of the judicial act”, the lawyer noted, adding that the applied security measure of the claim should be maintained regardless of the circumstance of the party suffering or not suffering damages.

Varazdat Asatryan notes that Ara Hakobyan has a legitimate expectation to that property, has acquired certain rights, for which he applied to the court to get an opportunity to exercise. Therefore, according to the lawyer, the motion of “ArnDane” Company is subject to rejection.

The Director of “ArnDane” Company, Karen Melkumyan, also mentioned during the session that the plaintiff acquired the given property in ways that were not clear to him, from the Compulsory Enforcement. “The initial price was AMD 500 million, it was purchased for AMD 5 million. I personally have questions about it. And we bought that property for AMD 375 million.”

Lawyer Nerses Aghababyan mentioned that in this case a motion for counter security was submitted and rejected. “If that motion were granted without filing a motion to cancel the security of the claim, knowing that our loss will be compensated. But we continue to suffer losses without any countermeasures in place.”

“ArnDane” Company acquired the mentioned real estate from Armen Stamboltsyan, whose representative Karo Asatryan believes that the presented petition should be satisfied with the presented justifications. He mentioned that the use of the property cannot hinder or make it difficult to execute the judicial act.

According to the representative of “Armeconombank”, the petition is also subject to approval. “The fact of the absence of a rejection decision was emphasized. I think that by virtue of that fact, the proceedings of the case, at least in part, are subject to termination. I think the court should terminate the proceedings on its own initiative.”

Judge Yelena Arakelyan

Varazdat Asatryan, plaintiff Ara Hakobyan’s representative, mentioned once again that all the preconditions for the claim of obligation exist, they are present in the case materials and they will be presented in detail during the examination of the subject of the claim.

“We requested the acquisition of certain rights from the State Cadastre Committee, which was rejected for reasons unclear to us, and other actions were also requested, which were rejected. They are additional discussion issues that will be discussed at the preliminary court session. Our opinion is that the grounds of the lawsuit exist and should be examined in its context,” Asatryan said.

Judge Yelena Arakelyan informed the parties that the decision made as a result of the mediation examination will be sent to the participants of the trial within the terms provided by law.

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About 70 auctions have been announced for the sale of areas on 14 Aivazovsky address. In one of them (on 26 December, 2016), Ara Hakobyan, Director of “Kecharis Hotel” LLC, was declared the winner. On 9 January, 2017, the purchase and sale agreement was signed. However, later it became clear that Ara Hakobyan did not pay the cadastral value of the land, which hindered the registration of his ownership right to the property.

It should be noted that plaintiff Ara Hakobyan;s name is connected with  Mihran Poghosyan, a former member of the National Assembly, former Chief Compulsory Enforcement Officer of the RA judicial acts, taking into account the fact that the 100% shareholder of “Kecharis Hotel” LLC is Eduard Harutyunyan, who occupied the position of director of “Best Realty” LLC Company. Still in 2019, according to the data reported by the Special Investigation Service, in 2011, Mihran Poghosyan founded Hopkinten Trading Incorporated and Sigtem Real Estate Incorporated in the Republic of Panama through foreign citizens, and in October of the same year, instead of foreign directors of companies with Poghosyan’s direct participation, close people of Mihran Poghosyan were appointed. Further, Mihran Poghosyan, , participated in the management of the aforementioned organizations registered in the offshore zone of Panama through proxies, as a result of which the latter founded other companies in Armenia, including “Best Realty” LLC.

Main photo: Yelena Arakelyan, Ara Hakobyan