Galaxy Group and Armenian government trade accusations

YEREVAN, April 28. /ARKA/. The Galaxy group of companies, which holds the majority stake in Ucom telecom operator, accused today the Armenian government of attempting to seize the operator.

Gurgen Khachatryan, co-founder of the Galaxy group of companies and  chairman of Ucom  board of directors,  said in a statement that senior officials of the country demand the alienation of Ucom and another  leading Armenian IT company IUnetworks.

'We demand an immediate end to these illegal and lawless activities, more so inform that we will not give in to any provocations and pressure caused by the abuse of political power and legal instruments. I am sure that on a foundational level, we are well within the legal and moral boundaries, and we will not let a 12-year-old company with all its social capital and human destinies become a subject of bargaining, even in the face of adversity and the most severe pressure. Ucom is not for sale, neither is our dignity,” Khachatryan said in a statement.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's  spokeswoman Mane Gevorgyan reacted to this statement on her Facebook page.

She said that  in conversations with Armenian officials the family of Gagik Khachatryan (ex finance minister and head of State Revenue Committee) expressed readiness to return the loot to the government and to restore damage to the state.

She said the government has evidence that Gagik Khachatryan and his sons led a corrupt, mafia system in Armenia for years, having accumulated illegally wealth in the amount of several hundred million US dollars. 'The prime minister’s position is that the loot  must be returned to the state,' she said.
“As for Ucom, the alienation of the company’s shares is possible only with the consent of the Armenian government. After a dispute arose between the company’s shareholders, the government’s position was that the sale of Khachatryan’s shares in the company is possible if the entire amount received from the transaction will be transferred to the state budget," Gevorgyan wrote.

"The Prime Minister has repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that criminal cases involving corrupt officials are not investigated as efficiently as the public wants. The Prime Minister is still patiently waiting for quick and concrete results from the Armenian law enforcement system," Gevorgyan wrote.
She also noted that the government has information that  ex-president Serzh Sargsyan’s son-in-law Mikael Minasyan is also involved in the Ucom-related corruption schemes and that part of the shares, de jure owned by the Khachatryans, actually belongs to him.

"The prime minister expects that law enforcement officers will also properly investigate the corruption system belonging to the Sargsyan family ...", Gevorgyan wrote.

Gagik Khachatryan, currently under arrest, was detained on August 27, 2019 by the National Security Service of Armenia on suspicion of corruption charges. According to  hetq.am , Ucom shares belonging to the Khachatryans was seized. In the same statement, Galaxy Group said that "all property, including shares of Ucom and IUnetworks, has been unlawfully arrested.

On April 9, c-founder and CEO of Ucom Armenian telecom operator Hayk Yesayan and hundreds of other employees of Ucom tendered their resignations in protest against its majority shareholders’ plans to buy a rival company Veon Armenia (trading as Beeline in Armenia).  According to Yesayan, he proposed that the majority shareholders sell their 94.01% of the company’s shares for about 34 billion drams, which is equivalent to $70 million, but the proposal was refused.

The Armenian company Ucom (Universal Communications) was founded in 2007. It provides high-speed symmetric Internet, IP-television and digital telephony.

Galaxy Group of Companies was founded in 1999 by Aram, Gurgen and Artyom Khachatryans. It created and runs more than 15 companies in Armenia, Georgia and Belarus with an employee base of around 3,000 people.

Galaxy Group of Companies is  one of the biggest taxpayers in Armenia, with over 13-15 billion AMD in tax payments.-0-

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19:39 04/28/2020